How to Frame a Terrorist Swedish Newspapers' Reporting on Acts of Terror in the Nordic Countries during the 2010s
Carl William Bravinger
Peace and Conflict Studies Bachelor of Arts 12 Credits Spring 2020 Supervisor: Kristian Steiner Abstract
During the 2010s what could be described as a new “terror-wave” went through Europe, the Nordic countries included, and for a while it was the primary concern for many young Europeans. At the same period, an influx of right-wing parties has gained popularity, both within the European Union and on a national level. This arose the curiosity to investigate how the news coverage on some of the terror attacks differ based on the terrorist’s background. To explore this the thesis conducts a quantitative content analysis on 863 news articles from the four largest newspapers in Sweden. Six acts of terror committed in any of the Nordic countries during the 2010s were ultimately compared and analysed by coding the articles abductively, basing the codes on Entman’s theory of framing. To raise the validity of the study, an external validity was assessed using a representative sample of the Swedish newspapers landscape, and through conducting the coding twice with some space in between resulting in similar conclusions. The analysis demonstrates that there are obvious differences in the framing of the attack, the terrorist and the proposed measures when comparing the coverage of the acts of terror.
Key words: Terrorism, Framing, Newspapers, Sweden, Content Analysis
Word Count: 13 337
2
List of Tables:
3.1: Model of Media Coverage of Terror Events p.18 6.1: Framing of Attack – Trollhättan p.33 6.2: Framing of Attack – Bærum p.33 6.3: Avg. Frequency of "Illustrative" Words Describing the Attack p.35 6.4: Avg. Amount of References to Prev. Attacks per Article p.35 6.5: Avg. Amount of References to Terror Networks per Article p.36 6.6: Total amount of Connections to Terror Networks p.36 6.7: Average Amount of References to the Perpetrators’ Religious Beliefs p.37 6.8: Framing of National & Ethnic Identity – Manshaus, Abdulwahab & El-Hussein p.38 6.9: Framing of National & Ethnic Identity – Akilov & Bouanane p.38 6.10: Framing of Personality – Abdulwahab & El-Hussein p.39 6.11: Framing of Personality – Akilov & Bouanane p.40 6.12: Framing of Personality – Lundin Pettersson & Manshaus p.40 6.13: Comparing Framing of Personality – “Internal” vs External Other” p.41 6.14: Framed Causes of the Attack p.41 6.15: Framed Motivations of the Attack p.42 6.16: Distribution of Codes Regarding Mental Health p.43 6.17: Comparison of Terrorist vs. Perpetrator p.44 6.18: Avg. Amount of References to National Leaders per Attack p.45 6.19: Framing of Victims p.46 6.20: Comparison of Proposed Responses p.47 6.21: Proposed Responses to Trollhättan p.48 6.22: Average Amount of Proposed Responses per Article p.48 6.23: Proposed Responses – Comparison of the “External” and “Internal Other” p.49 6.24: Avg. Amount of Responses – Comparison of the “External” and “Internal Other” p.49
3 Table of Contents
1 Introduction ...... 6
1.1 Research Problem ...... 6 1.2 Aim and Research Question ...... 8 1.3 Relevance to Peace and Conflict Studies ...... 9 1.4 Disposition of Thesis ...... 9
2 Background ...... 11
2.1 Stockholm, Sweden 2010 ...... 11 2.2 Copenhagen, Denmark 2015 ...... 12 2.3 Trollhättan, Sweden 2015 ...... 12 2.4 Stockholm, Sweden 2017 ...... 13 2.5 Turku, Finland 2017 ...... 13 2.6 Bærum, Norway 2019 ...... 14 2.7 Newspapers ...... 15
3 Literature Review ...... 16
3.1 The Symbiosis of Terrorism, Media, and Politics ...... 16 3.2 Framing Terrorism ...... 18 3.3 Muslims as the Western “Other” ...... 20
4 Theoretical Framework ...... 22
4.1 Depiction of the Attack ...... 22 4.2 The Portrayal of the Terrorist ...... 23 4.3 Description of the Casual Actors ...... 24 4.3.1 Leaders ...... 24 4.3.2 Victims ...... 25 4.4 Proposed Responses ...... 25
5 Methodology ...... 27
5.1 Research Design ...... 27 5.2 Gathering and Selection Process of Data ...... 27 5.3 Selection of Cases ...... 28 5.4 Quantitative Content Analysis ...... 30 5.4.1 Reflection on Quantitative Content Analysis ...... 31 5.4.2 Operationalisation of Codes ...... 32
4 6 Analysis ...... 34
6.1 Framing of the Attack: ...... 35 6.1.1 “Illustrative” Words ...... 36 6.1.2 Links to Terror Groups and Previous Attacks ...... 37 6.2 Framing of the Perpetrator ...... 39 6.2.1 Religion, Nationality, and Ethnic Identity ...... 39 6.2.2 Personality ...... 41 6.2.3 Causes and Motivations behind the Attack ...... 43 6.2.4 Mental Health ...... 45 6.2.5 Terrorist or Perpetrator ...... 45 6.3 The Portrayal of the Casual Actors ...... 46 6.3.1 National Leaders ...... 47 6.3.2 Victims ...... 48 6.4 Proposed Responses ...... 49
7 Discussion ...... 52
7.1 Framing of the Attack ...... 52 7.2 Framing of the Terrorist ...... 53 7.3 Framing of the Proposed Responses ...... 55
8 Conclusion ...... 56
Appendix 1: Physical Newspapers ...... 58
References ...... 59
5 1 Introduction
1.1 Research Problem
Growing up as a teenager and young adult during the 2010s, it at one point felt like there was a new terror attack every week in Europe. It often felt surreal to read the news and see the horrible pictures of otherwise popular tourist destinations, many of which I had visited, such as the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, the London Bridge, La Rambla in Barcelona, and Drottninggatan in my hometown Stockholm, to mention a few. According to a survey in 2017 of 20,000 young people across the globe, 83% answered that they are the most afraid of terrorism, more than any other factor, including climate change, war, and income inequality (UNESCO, 2017:1). However, the reality is quite the opposite of my perception. In recent history, Western Europe saw its peak in terrorism attacks in 1979, and it has ever since (except for a rise in ‘91-92) steadily decreased. Nevertheless, there has been an overall increase since 2010, hitting its peak in 2015 with 261 more attacks than in 2004 (GTD, 2019; Rashid & Olofsson, 2020:2; Bergan & Lee, 2018:43). The misperception is likely due primarily to media heavily distorting and influencing the world view as more dangerous than is it (Gerbner & Gross, 1976), especially when connected to Islamic terrorism (Woods, 2011). At the same time, Europe was hit by what is commonly referred to as the “European migrant crisis”, or the “refugee crisis”. Wars in other parts of the world, not least in Western Asia with the wars in Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq, forced millions to flee their homes. At its peak – 2015 and 2016 – the European Union received almost 2.7 million asylum applicants (Eurostat, 2020). The 2010s witnessed an upsurge for right-wing parties (Moffitt, 2016), both in the European Parliament with a new bloc called Identity and Democracy consisting of nine far-right parties and, on a national level in the recent elections.
6 There has been a clear trend all over Europe as nationalist parties are among the three biggest parties in a third of all European nations (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017:52; Johansson Heinö, 2017). Populism has once again grown into a larger factor in politics, and the Nordic countries are no exception. Immigration has been one of the major issues for voters, and both the political debate and media been influenced by it the past decade. By studying the media one can, to an extent, predict the larger sentiment within a population, such as an increased populistic ideology. Though theories differ whether mass media has a direct influence on people’s beliefs, it is nonetheless an essential factor in enhancing issues already existing in society and setting the agenda of what is deemed important (Hartmann & Husband, 1971). Media handling of representation is an incarnation of power, as it both produces and reproduces power relations by constructing knowledge, values, conceptions, and beliefs (Orgad, 2012:61f). E.g., if media continues a malign label of a particular group, it further normalises and strengthens such beliefs, creating a vicious cycle resulting in a self-sustained racist culture. Terror attacks thoroughly affect societies to the core, and media plays an essential role in how people will make sense of the distressing events. The coverage will, as previously explained, not only reinforce existing prejudices but consequently become self-fulfilling and self-reinforcing. Therefore, it is especially important that the media’s reporting is accurate, and that any biases or prejudices within the coverage are exposed. Furthermore, it is of great concern to look into news reporting as it gives us a good overview of the social norms within society. There has been an extensive history of ‘othering’ Muslims in the West, and this thesis aims to provide a general indication of how society has seen Muslims throughout the 2010s. It is only by uncovering any potential biases we can respond to them accordingly. Research argue that if media avoid giving credit of terror attacks to particular groups, it will lower the likelihood of future terror attacks. (Rohner & Frey, 2007:130) However, by ignoring to report on terror attacks entirely, especially attacks that are not committed “at home”, leads to terrorists in developing countries to committing more atrocious attacks to obtain media coverage (ibid.). It is thus of high importance that terror attacks are reported on accurately.
7 1.2 Aim and Research Question
The purpose of this comparative, quantitative content analysis is to uncover any potential differences in how terrorists are depicted in Swedish newspapers’ coverage on acts of terror in the Nordic countries during the 2010s, based on their different religious, ethnic, or national background. Furthermore, it aims to investigate the possible hidden structural differences within the news coverage. Thus, the question it will try to answer is:
How may the terrorist’s religious, ethnic, or national background change the way Swedish newspapers’ report on acts of terror perpetrated in the Nordic countries between 2010 to 2019?
To answer this, the following operational questions will be guiding the research, and will be further elaborated upon in the fourth chapter:
1. How is the terror attack described? 2. How is the terrorist described? 3. How are the other actors portrayed? a. Political leaders – criticised or praised? b. Victims – as heroes of innocent bystanders? 4. What kind of political measures are proposed as a response to the attack?
The coding scheme is divided into these four operational questions which aim to each answer one part of how the reporting changes based on the terrorist. These four categories, in turn, have mother codes, child codes, and baby codes in accordance to the theories outlined in the theoretical framework.
8 1.3 Relevance to Peace and Conflict Studies
A common misconception is that Peace and Conflict Studies only apply to wars. Terror attacks affect societies to their core, and news coverage plays an essential role in how people make sense of such events and can witness social biases such as stereotypes and prejudices within the investigated community to discover social conflicts. As media is a central part of the curriculum in Peace and Conflict Studies, and the theories of othering and framing two prominent components within the field, this thesis falls within the vast scope of what is relevant within Peace and Conflict Studies. Moreover, though Terrorism Studies and Peace and Conflict Studies have been two separated fields of study, they are very much related to each other. Terrorism is commonly discussed and researched within academic Peace and Conflict journals, as well as within prominent books within the field. Although the main purpose of this thesis is to explore the structural differences within Swedish news media and rather use acts of terrorism to do so, Terrorism Studies and Peace and Conflict Studies indeed share a vital synergy, and, according to Toros & Tellidis (2013), have a lot to learn from each other.
1.4 Disposition of Thesis
This thesis consists of seven chapters. Firstly the introduction, where the research problem, the aim of the study, the research question along with the operational questions, in addition to its relevance and position within Peace and Conflict. Chapter Two comprises the background, in which the six cases under investigation as well as the four newspapers analysed. Chapter Three discusses the previous research on the symbiosis of terrorism, media, and politics, the framing of terrorism, and the “othering” of Muslims within Western societies.
9 Chapter Four consists of the theoretical framework, which is based on Entman’s four steps of framing, of which the operational questions are based on, adjusted and elaborated on to suit this particular thesis. Chapter Five explains the methodological framework of which this study is following. It consists of subchapters defining and evaluating the chosen research design, the selected method of quantitative content analysis, and argues for the decided cases and the four newspapers. Chapter Six entails the analysis of the six cases and follows the operational questions. Chapter Seven includes a discussion, in which the results of the analysis are put into relation with previous research and theories from chapter three and four. Lastly, the thesis ends with Chapter Eight, the conclusion, in which the concluding remarks are presented to answer the research questions, and suggestions for future research are made.
10 2 Background
This chapter introduces the cases under investigation as well as the newspapers analysed. The selection process is further explained in the methodology chapter.
2.1 Stockholm, Sweden 20101
On the afternoon of the 11th of December 2010, Taimour Abdulwahab from Tranås puts his car on fire on Olof Palme’s street in Central Stockholm. Five minutes later he detonates a suicide vest on Bryggargatan, a side street to Drottninggatan, one of the most popular shopping streets in Stockholm. While Abdulwahab only killed himself, and two more were injured, later reports suggested that the bomb had the potential to reach 200 metres and kill many more if it had successfully detonated in the middle of the crowd of Christmas shoppers on Drottninggatan. Shortly before Taimour Abdulwahab left his car, he emailed audio files to TT News Agency (a shared owned news service between the largest newspapers and media groups in Sweden), SÄPO (the Swedish Security Service), and his wife explaining his motives for the attack. Among others, Abdulwahab mentions Lars Vilks, a Swedish artist known for his controversial depiction of the prophet Muhammad as a “roundabout dog” (a form of street installation), and to revenge against Sweden’s military actions in Afghanistan as motivations.
1 Claesson, F. (2015); Ekmark, M. & Westerberg, O. (2014).; Furusjö, J. (2015).
11 2.2 Copenhagen, Denmark 20152
The afternoon on the 14th of February 2015 Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein begins to shoot at a free speech debate hosted by Krudttønden cultural centre in the Østerbro district, Copenhagen, where he kills one person and three more are injured. El-Hussein flees the scene, and at 01.00 the night to the 15th of February he once against opens fire, this time against a Jewish synagogue in central Copenhagen hosting a Bat Mitzva and one more person is killed. At 05.17 el- Hussein is shot to death after a shootout with the police in Nørrebro. Omar El-Hussein had previously been convicted for attempted murder only a year before the terror attack in 2015. Reports claimed that he possibly began to radicalise, and when the police begin to analyse El-Hussein’s confiscated mobile phone they reportedly find Islamic propaganda and a “terrorist-handbook”. The mobile phone found at the time of the 2015 terror attack furthermore indicates that El-Hussein as radicalised, as the police find files linked to Daesh and al-Qaeda. The first attack’s main target was likely Lars Vilks, an artist who is highly controversial due to his depiction of the prophet Muhammed, who the police later discovered that El-Hussein had repeatedly searched for online.
2.3 Trollhättan, Sweden 20153
Thursday the 22nd of October 2015 Anton Lundin Pettersson enters Kronan, a school in Trollhättan, a city 75 kilometres north of Gothenburg, carrying a sword and a knife. Four minutes after arriving to Kronan, he attacks his first victims, injuring a student and killing an employee by stabbing him twice in the back. Lundin Pettersson continues through the school and attacks and kills one student and one teacher. At this point, staff and students begin to understand the situation and start locking students and teachers into classrooms for protection. Lundin
2 DR Nyheder, (2019); Elkjaer, B, Gjerding, S. & Giversen, N. (2020). 3 Divinyi, S. (2016).
12 Pettersson would stab one more student who manages to fight him off and lock the door. Seven minutes after the first phone call to SOS, the police arrive to Kronan, and they quickly find the attacker. He launches towards the police who responds with opening fire against him. Lundin Pettersson later died at the hospital, after killing three and injuring one more. After the attack, the police find a suicide note from Lundin Pettersson blaming the immigrants, claiming that he had to act. In addition, links to extreme right movements were found.
2.4 Stockholm, Sweden 20174
On the 7th of April 2017, a truck was hijacked in central Stockholm by Rakhmat Akilov while he is making a delivery. As Akilov escapes, the chauffeur is injured when trying to stop the hijacking, and he begins making his way towards Drottninggatan. Akilov turns down to the shopping street and drives down at high speed until he crashes into Åhléns City, a large department store in central Stockholm. Akilov escapes from the scene but injures 14 and kills five (one of which later dies due to their injuries in the hospital) before colliding into the building. Later that same evening the police find and arrest Akilov in Märsta, a suburb 35 kilometres north of Stockholm. Rakhmat Akilov came to Sweden in 2014 from Uzbekistan and was a year before the attack denied Swedish residency.
2.5 Turku, Finland 20175
On the afternoon of the 18th of August 2017, Abderrahman Bouanane begins to stab people on Salutorget in central Turku. He kills his first victim and stabs anyone trying to help the woman as he continues over the square for his next target, another woman, and attacks people who help her before he makes his way
4 Lindström, N. & Widell, L. (2018); Lindström, N., Rosén, E. & Widell, L. (2018).
13 towards Trätorget. On his way, he stabs three more and kills a second woman before he is shot in the leg and taken down by the police. In total, killing two women and injuring nine (men and women). The police suspect that Bounanane was specifically aiming to attack women and that the injured men were stabbed as they attempted to help the victims. Abderrahman Bouanane, a Moroccan citizen, reportedly arrived in Finland the year before the attack but was denied Finish residency. Half a year previous to the terror attack SUPO (the Finish Security Intelligence Service) was informed about Bouanane’s increasing radicalisation and violence as he threatened to kill anyone being around him when angry or upset. He reportedly wished to join the Islamic State and called Finns “unfaithful”. In Bouanane’s manifesto, which he recorded and uploaded to social media shortly before the terror attack, he recites texts from the Qur’an. In the trial, Bouanane declares that he is fighting a war as men are the victims of women.
2.6 Bærum, Norway 20196
The afternoon on the 10th of August 2019, Philip Manshaus leaves his home on his way to a local mosque. He leaves the corpse of his younger sister, whom he killed 45 minutes before his departure because of her Asian ethnicity. Manshaus pulls up to the Al Noor-Mosque and carries (at least) two weapons as he walks into the Mosque through a side entrance. He fires several shots towards the building and two men before entering the prayers room where he is quickly overtaken by a man inside the Mosque who heard the shots. At least one shot is fired inside the room, and the man who confronted Manshaus is injured during the fight but manages to restrain Manshaus until the police arrive. Shortly before arriving at the Mosque, Manshaus writes in an internet forum that he is fighting a “race-war”, and he tries to start a livestream on Facebook. As it fails, he instead posts ‘Valhalla awaits’ [Valhall venter]. The police later find
5 Sundström, L. (2018); Svartström, A. (2018).
14 more online posts from Manshaus praising previous right-wing terrorists, such as Brenton Tarrant in Christchurch, New Zealand and Patrick Crusius in El Paso, Texas, and claims that they have inspired him to act.
2.7 Newspapers7
The analysed magazines are some of the largest newspapers in Sweden chosen for a representative sample of the mainstream Swedish newspaper landscape. Dagens Nyheter (DN) describes itself as an independently liberal morning newspaper under the Bonnier Group, one of the largest media groups in North Europe, which also owns Expressen, a liberal evening newspaper. Schibsted, a Norwegian media group, which owns Svenska Dagbladet (SvD), a moderate morning newspaper, and Aftonbladet, a social-democratic evening newspaper (additionally, the Swedish Trade Union Confederation owns 9% of Aftonbladet).
6 Burke, J. (2019); Holm-Nilsen, S., Malm, M. & Mordt, H. (2019); NRK (2019).; Zondag et al. (2019). 7 Information for each newspaper is gathered from their official “about” section on their respective website.
15 3 Literature Review
The issue of difference in media coverage of terrorists/perpetrators based on their religious, ethnic, or national background has previously been studied, mainly in an American and British context. In this chapter presents studies regarding the media’s role in society, the importance of framing, and the perceived role of Muslims in the West. This thesis will thus build on to the current knowledge on terrorism in news reporting by analysing it in a new context, strengthening or challenging the pre- existing theories.
3.1 The Symbiosis of Terrorism, Media, and Politics
Media have a great responsibility to both reinforce and possibly change the perception of the “other” (the theory of “other” will be explained in 3.3.). It reflects our own beliefs while serving as a shaping force (Mahan, 2017), so one needs to question how media influence not only the perception of the other but thus additionally how it potentially changes the “other’s” behaviour. Multiple theories exist which attempts to describe the media’s importance for public opinion. Spiral-of-silence theorists argue that the media cause a climate which might ‘obfuscate the general population’s real attitudes on an issue’ while silencing others with opposing views (Fürsich, 2010: 114). Cultivation theory argues that media has a small influence on public opinion in the short term; instead, life-long immersion leads to take the constructed reality as actual social reality (Fürsich, 2010:114f). The agenda-setting process, as per Dearing and Rogers (1996), it explains why certain issues gain more attention than others, the creation process of public opinion, and why some problems are addressed through policy actions while others are neglected.
16 All theories, however, agree upon that consequently, reality and representation are essentially the same, we see the world the way its represented, and the distinction between news stories and the perceived reality becomes the same (Fürsich, 2010:115). Media creates reinforcing, lasting enemy images and malign stereotypes and sets the dominant discourse. Subsequently, representations even have the potential to influence political decisions (Domke, et al., 1999:37). If the news media are biased, it might fuel a self-sustained and reinforcing cycle of discrimination and prejudice that affects a significant part of society, potentially opening up for conflicts (Eid, 2013:612; Hartmann & Husband, 1971). To illustrate this argument, think of advertisement. The exposure of certain brands influences our consumer behaviour, whether it is unconsciously or not. By continually seeing an advertisement for Coca-Cola, one is probably more likely to think of it rather than Pepsi next time one is buying a soda. That is why media representation is essential. If we are consistently exposed with the portrayal of terrorism as being equal to Islam in mass media, then that will be what we think of it. Dearing & Rogers (1996:4) describes this as ‘exposure through the mass media allows a social problem to be transformed into a public issue’. Because of media’s important role in society terrorism is, in short, highly interested in inflicting fear into a large population to bring a political effect (Lynch & McGoldrick, 2005:114; Powell, 2011:91; Morin, 2016:988). The attack itself is not the main interest, but rather that it is getting attention from the media for its message to reach as many as possible. Likewise, news media are more than happy to give so much attention to terror attacks due to its high “newsworthiness”, which will generate large profits (Powell, 2011:91; Rohner & Frey, 2007:130;142; Hartman & Husband, 1971:273). The mass media spreads and reinforce ideology to the larger population, and ‘the ideology of the news source and values of the country one lives in’, for example, affects the way news is reported upon. This ideology is created and distributed primarily through framing or the way that information is organised and presented (Powell, 2011:93ff). If media overestimates the risk of terrorism, it might lead to an increased public demand for excessive measures or play into the hands of authoritarian and populist political movements (Rashid & Olofsson, 2020). Through terrorism, governments can gain public support for policies and measures (Maxwell, 2002; Morin, 2016:988).
17 In other words, terrorism, media, and politics shape a close-knitted trinity. They can all in some ways draw advantage of each other. Terrorism use media to spread their message to a broader audience, potentially influencing public and political opinions and media use terrorism as it is of high importance for their audience, which will generate a high profit. Politics can use terrorism to justify decisions and policies, such as the invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11, and media to spread their ideology.
3.2 Framing Terrorism
‘Media use frames to simplify, prioritise, and structure and aid interpretation of a narrative of events’ (Boyle & Mower, 2018:206). It involves focusing on and selecting specific aspects of perceived reality – and ignoring others – to present information promoting a specific ideology (Entman, 1993:54; Powell, 2011:93ff). The more the frames are repeated, the more prominent they become as a consequence from a distorted summary of a complex issue (Entman, 1993:53; Entman, 1994:509), creating negative stereotypes of a group. By framing an attack as terrorism, it is categorised as a violent act against civilians to reach a political effect which is deemed unobtainable by non-violent means, yet military actions are rarely, or never, labelled as an act of terror. Lynch and McGoldrick (2005:114) raise the example of a NATO bombing campaign in 1999 to force Serbs to ‘put pressure on their leadership to give in’. It could be described as terrorism, but it is not. There is a great importance of the words chosen when reporting, as each word comes with labels, and they are describing an event as well as creating the meaning of it (Morin, 2016:987). The word terrorism implies that an attack is an act of a bigger international war against the nation, rather than a crime, which is an isolated, local, incident. (ibid.:1000). Aysel Morin (2016:987) compares the coverage of two attacks in the US, which showed that one perpetrator was quickly labelled an “extremist” and discussed as an “Islamic terrorist”. In contrast, a white perpetrator got described as a “homicidal maniac”, attributing the attack to mental illness, rather than his religion or background. This trend of different representation based on the perpetrators' ethnicity and religion is coherent to much research done on the topic
18 (e.g. Betus, et al., 2019; Chuang, 2012; Crenshaw, 2014; Powell, 2011), the terror attacks by Muslims are more often assigned to an organised terror group while terror attacks by white perpetrators are seen as isolated events. In a study by Kearns et al. (2019) examining all terrorist attacks in the U.S between 2006 and 2015, attacks with Muslim perpetrators received 357% more coverage than other attacks. According to Khiabany and Williamson (2012:135), ‘the simplistic equation of Islam with barbaric practices is a key aspect of the culturalization of terror and violence’. Consequently, this culturalization legitimise policies towards Islam and Muslims, both within Western foreign policies in, e.g. Iraq and Afghanistan (ibid.:141), but similarly within Western societies.
Table 3.1. Model of Media Coverage of Terror Events (Powell, 2011:106).
19 3.3 Muslims as the Western “Other”
To determine who we are, we need someone to demonstrate what we are not (Harle, 2000; Oppenheimer, 2006). Muslims have since the Middle Ages been widely considered an “other” in the West, preventing them to fully be accepted as “us” (Arjana, 2017:89; Said, 1997). Islam was initially introduced in contemporary news media - and blamed mainly for – their connections to oil, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and terrorism (Powell, 2011:92), setting up for minimal knowledge of Islam and fuelling fear. The malign media representation of Muslims in the West consequently homogenises the second-largest religious group in the world with 1.8 billion followers (Pew Research Center, 2015), as they are categorised together in official welfare documentation as well as academic and journalistic articles as markers of identity and ethnicity. This disguises a highly diverse Muslim population all over the world with their individual cultures and languages. Muslims thus becomes the “other” set in opposition to Western culture (Khiabany & Williamson, 2011:138). The simplified and distorted representation of Muslims as one homogenous population then shifts the blame of a tiny group of extremists and terrorists upon the entire population. The rest, a significant majority, are ignored as the destructive representations of Muslims in media contribute to negative stereotypes and perceived reality of Muslims as terrorists. Using terms such as “Muslim Radicals”, “Muslim Fundamentalists”, or “Muslim Terrorist” creates incorrect generalisations. Being Muslim does not mean one is a terrorist and being radical/fundamental does not make someone a terrorist (Lynch & McGoldrick, 2005), but through the constant media representation of such connections, this becomes the socially accepted reality. On the other side tragedies such as the massacre in Jonestown8 or even the Oklahoma bombings9 are rarely, if ever, contributed as a consequence of Christianity, or Western values (Said, 1997). In
8 The Peoples Temple Agriculture Project, better known as Jonestown, was a religious settlement in Guyana established by the Peoples Temple, led by Jim Jones. The Peoples Temple was a doomsday cult which gained international attention as the members committed mass suicide in 1978. 9 The Oklahoma bombing was a terror attack towards a federal building in Oklahoma, USA in 1995. The terrorists were later confirmed to be members of the American far-right movement.
20 the case of the Oklahoma bombing in April 1995, the initial news reports incorrectly suggested that Islamic terrorists were to blame as it had ‘middle eastern terrorism written all over it’ (Lewis, 2012:262). The constant focus on Islam in news coverage of terror attacks thus often suppresses the actual motivations behind the attacks, especially when they ‘involve an examination of the ugly side of Western foreign policy, with its support for and arming of various brutal regimes’ (Lewis, 2012:264). Research instead shows that “religious” terrorism is rather motivated by political factors, such as social and economic deprivation, Islamophobia, or to compel military action (Ibid.; O’Duffy, 2008; Stohl, 2008). An insignificantly small number of Muslims participate in such acts and groups. The dehumanisation of Muslims that occurs both in media, the political discourse, and within society, might subsequently lead to terror and hate crimes directed against Muslims (Arjana, 2014:3-7).
21 4 Theoretical Framework
Entman’s (1993:52) theory on framing has shaped the four operational questions posed at the beginning, and of which lay the foundation of the codes. Framing does not have to include all four steps, but all are to be presented and used to analyse the articles:
• Define problems – how is the attack depicted? • Diagnose causes – how is the terrorist portrayed and what motivations or causes are presented? • Make moral judgements – how are the casual actors described? • Suggest remedies – what political measures are presented as a response to the attack?
Entman (1993) explains framing as outline problems one wants to see, by using information backing up one’s interests. Frames highlight certain examples while shadowing others, not showing the audience the entire picture, but rather the agenda one wishes them to see, and to elevate one’s values.
4.1 Depiction of the Attack
Just as the distinction between terrorist and criminal is essential, the difference between terrorism and crime is crucial when media describes an attack. Framing a violent attack as a terrorist attack politicises the action (Orgad, 2012:186), likewise, not calling it such diminishes the political importance. A terror attack is understood as an attack not only on the victims directly wounded, but as a symbolic act whose actual objective is to hurt the entire nation, its institutions, or policies (Morin, 2016:1000). It can be seen as a stereotypical conflict between good (us, the innocent victims) and the evil (the murderous terrorist) (Lewis, 2012:261). If the attack is linked, or compared, to other terror
22 attacks or terror cells, it is considered as a cogwheel in a bigger mechanism, i.e. a larger threat to our way of living. Furthermore, as Entman (1994) illustrates, media tend to present actions from the “other” as more severe than they do for similar actions by someone framed as “us”, which distorts the perception of “them”. However, if the attack instead is framed as a crime, while still severe, it is first understood as an isolated event of local violence., meaning that there is less of a perceived threat of future attacks (Morin, 2016), and less (or none at all) speculated connections to previous attacks or groups.
4.2 The Portrayal of the Terrorist
Othering is the process where we distinguish “us” from “them”, the other. The “other” may be different from us based on, e.g. ‘racial, ethnic, and national identities’ (Harle, 2000:17), but the “other” does not have to be an opponent of ours, it could just as well be neutral or even good. The other can sometimes, however, be portrayed as the enemy – someone dangerous which threatens our way of living – and sometimes even needs to be defeated. This is the inferior “other” (ibid.), the type of other who is perceived as evil and therefore impossibly equal to us, who represent good (ibid.:17). The word terrorist is a highly politically charged word, with particular labels which distinguish it from a “regular” criminal. Though both bear an “othering” effect, as explained previously, a crime is understood as an isolated local event, meaning that the perpetrator is an “internal other”. They are still “us”, but they are cast-away from society, or lone-wolfs (Crenshaw, 2014), and a ‘maladjusted or mentally unstable individual (Morin, 2016:1000). A terrorist, however, is often othered through their religious and ethnic (immigrant/foreign) background and are more likely to be labelled a terrorist if they are of foreign nationality (Morin, 2016:999f; Crenshaw, 2014), ignoring what makes “them” like “us”, such as family and friends, hobbies, personality, et cetera, or in other words, what makes them human. If there is less attention to such details of the other, it could be regarded as a process of dehumanising the other – a process to distance ourselves from the enemy. When dehumanising the
23 other, they become perceived as less worth than us, and as a consequence, it may eliminate any empathy towards them (Keen, 1988:16). If this persists for an extended period, it may lead to a radicalisation of society, as the divide between them and us becomes so big they are almost regarded as an entirely different species. Moreover, terrorists are more likely to be linked with terror groups and previous attacks through evidence or speculations (Morin, 2016:1000). While the criminal is seen as “maladjusted” or “mentally unstable”, the motivations of the terrorist are seen as a result of sets the terrorist apart from “us”, e.g. their “racial”, “ethnic”, and “national” identities (Harle, 2000:17). Thus, there is less attention to other potential factors that could have led the terrorist to act. For the remainder of this thesis, the other will be divided into two groups – the “internal” and “external” other. The “internal other” shares many of the identities we apply to ourselves, while the “external other” is someone more different to us based on the ‘racial, ethnic and national identities’ described by Harle (2000:17).
4.3 Description of the Casual Actors
4.3.1 Leaders
An act of terror is perceived as an attack on the nation, making it of great concern for the political leaders of the country. The prime minister or the president will usually not give too much attention to a criminal act, but a terror attack is of utmost importance. Thus, it is of relevance to analyse to what extent the focus is on national leaders of the attacked nation within news-reporting.
24 4.3.2 Victims
The description of the attacks’ victims can further show differences in reporting on terror attacks. As previously assessed, a terror attack is considered an attack on the nation (Morin, 2016:1000), and so the victims are portrayed with attributes highlighting their similarities to us, such as nationality, religion, or other cultural aspects. They may have been the ones who directly were affected physically, but we are sharing so many similarities, so we are all part of the target. Victims injured when trying to stop the terrorist as well as those injured without doing anything tends to be called heroes in acts of terror (Powell, 2011:103f), implying that they are protecting us against something evil. If framed as a crime, however, the victims tend to be labelled as innocent bystanders, targeted by unexpected or irrational violence (Morin, 2016:1000). As the attack is labelled a crime, it implies that the perpetrator is unstable and that it was an isolated event. Therefore, the victims were not directly targeted but rather unlucky to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.
4.4 Proposed Responses
Once a terror attack has happened, people begin to search for a way to respond to the event. Depending on whether the news-coverage frames the terrorist as an “external” or “internal” other, the proposed responses may very well differ. The political importance of the selective attention process has implications on what conclusions will be drawn from the attack, and half-truths may lead to invalid or dangerous proposals regarding the terrorist's situation or intentions (Zur, 1991:359). The decision-makers are subjects to their pre-existing prejudice, and thus any responses to a terror attack are likely to represent their pre-existing beliefs and to be based on predictions based on prejudice (Blanton, 1996:23). If the description of the terrorist is mainly focusing on the “racial”, “ethnic”, and “national” identities (Harle, 2000:17), the terrorist becomes a representative of the respective identities. The terrorist is no longer considered an individual, but rather as a representation of the features which makes them an “other” – such as Muslim, immigrant, et cetera – so the entire population shares the accountability
25 of the incident (Oppenheimer, 2006:280; Petersson, 2009). As a result, accusations towards the enemy become more influential and memorable, making people perceive the other as more hostile than they are and more likely to guess potential hostilities from the other. As a consequence, any actions from the other are seen as more severe (Entman, 1994; Silverstein & Flamenbaum, 1989:53; Zur, 1991:368f). Thus, a higher level of perceived threat has been measured when the danger was associated with “radical Islamic groups’, rather than “homegrown” terrorists (Woods, 2011:208). Thoroughly investigating the terrorists would suggest that they are politically motivated. However, instead of looking on the said policies, which would mean to critically evaluate the “ugly” side of Western policies (Lewis, 2012), the focus is on the terrorist’s ethnicity/religion/nationality, which was evident in the aftermath of 9/11, as the terror attack was quickly attributed to Muslims all over the US with as little connection the attacks as anyone else (Powell, 2011:92).
26 5 Methodology
Within this chapter, the thesis’ methodological approach will be discussed and explained. Firstly, presenting the research design will be presented, while the second part will assess the data selection process. Lastly, the chosen the analytical tool, a quantitative content analysis, will be evaluated.
5.1 Research Design
To conduct as thorough of a comparison as possible, one must have a sufficient number of cases, and each case is as similar as possible to minimise any possible variable which can affect the outcome, i.e., explain the results (Lijphart, 1971). As per the “Most Similar System” Design (MSSD), an effective design which compares similar phenomena to explore on what sets them apart (Anckar, 2008). While no attack is similar to the other, they share significant similarities. What this study explores is thus whether the ethnic, nationalistic, or religious background of the perpetrator affects the reporting. Moreover, this thesis does not aim to compare the newspapers to find a difference between their respective news coverage, but rather to find overarching frames, which indicates an everyday discourse within Swedish newspapers.
5.2 Gathering and Selection Process of Data
This thesis primary goal was to allow for a deeper analysis of Swedish newspapers potential prejudices when reporting on terror attacks. To limit the research due to time restrictions, I decided to look at terror attacks within the Nordic countries in the 2010s. As every Swedish newspaper cannot be analysed, the research will focus on four of the largest newspapers with the largest audience (ORVESTO Konsument, 2020; 3f) – Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter, Expressen,
27 and Svenska Dagbladet – which are set to represent the general newspaper landscape of Sweden. Furthermore, only articles published within a week of each terror attack in the physical editions are studied, and not the online articles. This is because online articles easily can be edited sometimes years after their date of publishing with no way of getting the original version. To access the original copies of the newspapers, thus the online archive Svenska Dagstidningar from the National Library of Sweden, which has stored volumes from 956 different journals dating back to 1645 has been used to access the original copies. A reason only terror attacks in the Nordic countries are studied is that news magazines tend to prefer and prioritise stories ‘close to their own and their audiences’ perceiver background’ (Fürsich, 2010:117). Additionally, to achieve the best result possible when comparing cases as few variables as possible should differ between them, as it increases the ambiguity what makes for the difference in news coverage. The Nordic countries are, of course, not the same, but they share many cultural and political dynamics to make it valuable to compare. This representative selection of newspapers also enhances the external validity of this research (Neuendorf, 2012:179).
5.3 Selection of Cases
The terror attacks selected has been narrowed down to include as similar cases as possible, though every incident is unique, to make for a valuable sample to compare and analyse. Therefore, this study shall look at Swedish newspapers reporting regarding acts of terror in the Nordic countries during the 2010s. The newspapers are a sufficient sample due to their different political orientation (two are liberal, one moderate, and one social-democratic) as well as different types. DN and SvD are daily newspapers, meaning that they sold by subscription. Aftonbladet and Expressen, however, are evening newspapers, meaning that they are sold in stores only. In the newspapers, regular articles, as well as editorials, chronicals, and debate pieces, are analysed, but submissions from readers are not included as. Although, in the end, it is editorials who decide whether reader submissions will be published, they do not necessarily speak for the newspaper, but rather for the individual writing them. The editorials, debate articles, and
28 chronicles, however, is written by the chief editor or an employee of the magazine, making it more representative for the values of the newspaper. To find out what constitutes as an act of terror, the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) from the University of Maryland is used. To be classified as terrorism, according to the GTD, all three of the following attributes must be present:
• The incident must be intentional – the result of a conscious calculation on the part of a perpetrator. • The incident must entail some level of violence or immediate threat of violence -including property violence, as well as violence against people. • The perpetrators of the incidents must be sub-national actors. The database does not include acts of state terrorism.
Furthermore, at least two of the following three criteria need to be met:
Criterion 1: The act must be aimed at attaining a political, economic, religious, or social goal. In terms of economic goals, the exclusive pursuit of profit does not satisfy this criterion. It must involve the pursuit of more profound, systemic economic change. Criterion 2: There must be evidence of an intention to coerce, intimidate, or convey some other message to a larger audience (or audiences) than the immediate victims. It is the act taken as a totality that is considered, irrespective of every individual involved in carrying out the act was aware of this intention. As long as any of the planners or decision-makers behind the attack intended to coerce, intimidate or publicise, the intentionality criterion is met. Criterion 3: The action must be outside the context of legitimate warfare activities. That is, the act must be outside the parameters permitted by international humanitarian law, insofar as it targets non-combatants.
According to the database, there have been 113 possible acts of terror perpetrated during this timeframe, 95 of which meets all the GTD’s three criteria. As this still is quite too extensive, I have, to further limit the number of cases to analyse, decided to only look at the cases with at least one casualty (death and/or injury),
29 which brings it down to 22 cases. Another reason to limit the cases solely to those with casualties is due to them being more likely to gain more reporting. Moreover, as this thesis aims to study how news coverage differs based on the terrorist’s background, the cases are once again reduced to those with a known perpetrator, which results in seven cases. However, one case was excluded due to the lack of news coverage for one of the cases (in Gothenburg, Sweden, 05/01- 2017), when an explosive device detonated outside an asylum seeker centre, injuring one person. Three members of the Nordic Resistance Movement planted the explosive, but it did not receive much news coverage within the timeframe chosen, only one article was found, but instead gained attention later once the perpetrators were caught. As the criteria from the GTD to define the acts of terror, it includes the school stabbing in Trollhättan 2015 even though the police classified it as a hate crime. When comparing cases, they must be as similar as possible to have as few variables as possible, which might distort the results. As no case is a replica of the others, this poses a challenge. If comparing the casualties of all cases, most of them are quite similar with relatively few victims, but there is one large outlier. Breivik’s attacks were much more severe than all of the others combined. Therefore, despite the apparent fact that the Oslo-bombing and the mass-shooting in Utøya are terror attacks, it is excluded from the study. Instead, it was decided to include another case not included in the GTD, as its coverage ended in 2018; the terror attack in Bærum, Norway, as it meets all the same criteria, and he was later charged with terrorism by the Norwegian state. Another reason to include this case is that, when withdrawing Breivik, the final list of cases ended up with only one terror attack with a white perpetrator, and four “Islamic” terror attacks, making for an uneven and therefore unsatisfactory comparison.
5.4 Quantitative Content Analysis
Content analysis dates back to 1893 when it was used to show how newspapers in New York had dropped their coverage of religious, scientific, and literary matters in favour of gossip, sports, and scandals (Krippendorff, 2004:5). When studying
30 mass communication, one needs to study the content (Riffe, et al., 2005:39). Due to the magnitude of articles contained within this research, a quantitative content analysis is the most suitable method to use as it will allow for an analysis which compares multiple newspapers and acts of terror. ‘When the volume of material exceeds the investigator’s capability to examine it’ a quantitative content analysis is useful, or even necessary (ibid.:39). A content analysis makes for a replicable process, meaning that anyone at any point can use the same codes on the same material to produce the same result (Krippendorff, 2004:18). All quantitative research aims to produce numbers to measure variables by focusing on counting results. Due to the vast number of texts, the most suitable choice is through conducting a content analysis, one of the most popular techniques for quantitative research. A quantitative content analysis’ goal is not to interpret a phenomenon, but rather to offer a ‘numerically based summary of a chosen message set’ (Neuendorf, 2012:44). Words are not neutral agents, but all bear their own label (Morin, 2016), and by looking at how frequently used certain words are one can make a robust analysis and claim on the reasons behind it and its potential effects. Subsequently, the codes are used to find and count the frequency of certain words within the articles, which is analysed using said theories (ibid.:40). To increase the validity of a quantitative content analysis, it is common to conduct an intercoder approach, meaning that multiple researchers analyse the same material with the same codes and compare their findings. The more similar they are, the higher validity is (Neuendorf, 2017:234). Due to the constraints regarding time and resources, this is not possible in this study. Instead, the coding was conducted twice with a break between. Each coding resulted in similar results, thus increasing the validity of the findings (Esaiasson, et al., 2017:209).
5.4.1 Reflection on Quantitative Content Analysis
A limitation – but likewise potentially a strength – of quantitative content analysis is that one is counting the number of times certain content is used. In this study, I will look at words, but a content analysis applies to, e.g. pictures and films too. Subsequently, this can open up for analysis on its effects and consequences. Furthermore, by counting the frequency of words, it reduces the risk for bias when
31 interpreting, as a qualitative content analysis would struggle with when looking at the context of the word’s usage. Others have argued that content analysis is an ambiguous and straightforward technique, but, as Neuendorf (2012:25-37) argues, this is misleading. Content analysis can be as simple, or as complex, as the researcher determines fit. Even “simple” studies can result in remarkable findings; it depends on the sample size studied and the number of codes. A quantitative content analysis was deemed to be the most fitting choice as it allows for a detailed study which, by looking whether certain words are used or if the perpetrator is described with certain attributes in some cases and not in others, can observe trends that are indicative of much larger ideas, such as potential biases in news reporting. Other methods would not be able to make the same predictions as a quantitative content analysis.
5.4.2 Operationalisation of Codes
The codes are, as previously explained, drawn from the theories outlined in the Theoretical Framework chapter to reflect upon the four operational questions. The codes were first chosen a priori, meaning that they were selected before the coding began. However, as the first coding was completed, it was deemed that the initial set of codes did not produce extensive enough data to analyse. Thus, a second coding was conducted, where along with the a priori codes, more words were coded into the pre-set categories. When analysing the act itself, codes regarding how the attack is called (e.g. terrorism or hate crime), what links are made with terror groups, and there are country leaders mentioned (as terrorism implies it is an attack against the nation, while a crime is an isolated event). The codes regarding the terrorist are based on what terms are used to describe the perpetrator (e.g. terrorist or criminal; mentions of ethnicity, nationality or religion, family and friends, etc.) to explore if there is a difference in which characteristic and motivations are emphasised. The victims’ portrayal is divided into heroes vs innocents. Previous research (Morin, 2016; Powell, 2011) has shown that victims of terror attacks are more likely to be labelled as a hero even if they are not acting in a special manner. The fourth and last category regards the proposed political actions.
32 By looking if the proposed measures are for example directed towards a certain group (e.g. by suggesting stopping/decreasing immigration, closing borders, thus implying that the threat comes from outside) will showcase whether the attacks are regarded differently.
33 6 Analysis
Within the following chapter, the analysis of the newspapers will be presented with the help of graphs. It will follow the structure of the operational questions, with the four subchapters each focusing on one operational question – the first being the description of the attack, the second focusing on the portrayal of the perpetrator, the third investigating the casual actors' portrayal, and lastly the proposed responses to the attacks. The first noticeable distinction concerning the reporting of the six terror attacks is the significant difference in how much media attention each attack receives. There is a significant difference regarding the interest news media seems to have on the attacks. On average, the attacks by the “internal other” had 67.5 articles each dedicated to them. The “external others’” attacks, however, received on average 182 articles each. Because of this significant difference, the codes’ average frequency per article will be calculated, because comparing the 371 pages about Stockholm 2017 to the 34 pages dedicated to Bærum 2019 does not make for a valuable comparison or analysis. Based on the theoretical framework, the cases will be divided into two groups, with Bærum and Trollhättan as the “internal other”, and the rest as the "external other” due to the different ‘racial, ethnic, and national identities’ which is used to distinguish “us” from “them” (Harle, 2000:17). Additionally, the codes in the text are translated into English by the author.10
10 The coding matrix along with the original Swedish translations are available upon request, and was not included as an appendix due to the magnitude of codes counted, a total of 496 unique codes with a total of 11 320 counted codes.
34 6.1 Framing of the Attack:
As assessed in the methodology chapter, the attacks are all acts of terror. Despite this, there is a difference in how often the newspapers framed the attack as either terrorism or crime. Within the crime-frame, words which are rather descriptive are included, such as in the case of Trollhättan. The attack is rarely framed as terrorism, but instead more often described as a “hate crime” or “school attack”, or in a descriptive matter, calling it a “knife/sword attack”.
Table 6.1: Framing of Attack – Trollhättan
The Bærum attack, however, was almost unanimously called a terror attack. 65% of the codes describing attack frame it an act of terror, compared to only 15% of the time for Trollhättan.
Table 6.2: Framing of Attack – Bærum
The coverage on the attack in Stockholm 2010 followed the same theme, with next to no dispute in the news reporting whether the attack was to be framed as an act of terror or not; only being described a crime in two instances. Framing it as terror, however, occurred 1.33 times per article, and a total of 273 times.
35 The Copenhagen attack was described occasionally as a shooting, but in 90% of the time the attack was framed, it was described as terrorism – 0.99 times per article. Similarly, the Stockholm 2017 attack was framed an act of terror 91% of the times – 1.78 times per article – in the remaining 9% it was described as a “truck attack” – 0.16 times per article. The Turku attack, however, is a bit more balanced in its framing: 55% of the time, it was described as an act of terror, the other 45% as a knife attack. When putting the “internal” against the “external other”, the difference in framing the attacks becomes apparent. Attacks of the “internal other” are 24% of the time described as terrorism and 76% of the time as a crime. On the contrary, the “external others’” attacks are framed as terrorism 89% of the time, while 11% of the time as a crime.
6.1.1 “Illustrative” Words
In some of the attacks, there was an abundance of using “illustrative” words such as “bloody”, “cowardly”, and “medieval”, et cetera. These words are not used to minimise or underplay their severity but rather attempts to either humiliate/belittle the attack or distinguish it as more despicable and horrible than other attacks. Included are also words which directly describe the attack as a religious act (6.2.4 further explores the religious aspects of the terrorist), but not those which describe the motive behind the attack.
6.3: Average Frequency per Article of “Illustrative” Words Describing the Attacks
Table 6.3. shows the number of times these codes appeared on average per article. Almost half of the articles about the Turku attack uses an illustrative word, whereas in the articles regarding the Bærum attack an illustrative word only
36 appeared once, describing the attack as “bloody”, and used an average of 0.03 times per article. Moreover, when comparing the “external” and “internal” other together, once again, a clear pattern is revealed. On average, “illustrative” words are used almost twice as often when describing the attacks by the “external other”, with it appearing 0.34 times per article, compared to 0.17 times per article for the “internal other”.
6.1.2 Links to Terror Groups and Previous Attacks
A crime is, as described in the theoretical framework, seen as an isolated event, whereas acts of terror are, seen as a continuation of an ongoing battle between “us” and “them” (Powell, 2011; Morin, 2016), thus making links – through speculations or facts – between the “external other” and previous attacks and terror groups more likely than for the “internal other”. The coding of the Swedish newspapers shows compelling results: The attack in Bærum was far more likely to be linked to previous terrorist attacks, most frequently the Christchurch and El Paso shootings.
Table 6.4: Average Amount of References to Previous Attacks per Article
In general, the terror attacks which were linked to each attack were usually recent acts of terror at the time of the cases. For instance, the Stockholm 2017 attack was heavily linked to the truck attacks in Nice 2017 and Berlin 2016, while the newspapers compared the Copenhagen attack to two incidents in Paris against the magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher store.
37 Table 6.5: Average Amount of References to Terror Networks per Article
At the same time, the links made to terror networks show a clear difference. Barely any connections to terror networks were made for the attacks in Bærum and Trollhättan. A “right-wing extremist group” was mentioned twice in the reporting of Trollhättan, and another two times for Bærum, which was also related to the “Nordic Resistance Movement” once. The attacks of the “external other”, however, were all heavily speculated to have connections to terror networks. Most commonly speculated were connections to IS, but also to Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and Hizb ut-Tahir. In the total amount of times a terror network was mentioned for all attacks, 99% of the connections were to so-called Islamic extremist groups
Table 6.6: Total Amount of Connections to Terror Network
38 6.2 Framing of the Perpetrator
As described by Harle (2000:17), the “other” is often differed from “us” by their ‘religious, national, and ethnic’ identities. Thus, within this subchapter, the framing of the perpetrators is analysed, starting with the identities. It then continues with the framing of personalities, the causes and motivations behind the attack, the perpetrators’ mental state. Lastly, explores if the newspapers frame the perpetrators as terrorists or criminals.
6.2.1 Religion, Nationality, and Ethnic Identity
Table 6.7: Average Amounts of References to the Perpetrators’ Religious Beliefs per Article
The religious beliefs of the “external others’” are more frequently reported (and speculated) upon than those of the “internal others”. Although there are multiple articles in the newspapers which clarify that the attacks are not a result of Islam, and that not all Muslims are to blame for the attack, the difference is still significant compared to Manshaus and Pettersson Lundin, since the reporting rarely mentions their religious belief (or lack of). Additionally, Islam is the religion which has gained a majority of the reporting’s attention. Furthermore, the code “Islamic terror” was used to frame the attack, while “atheist” or “Christian terror” was never discussed.
39 The codes regarding nationality and ethnicity are categorised together because of the small number of times the perpetrators’ ethnicity was described. Codes regarding Pettersson Lundin’s nationality and ethnicity only appeared twice, both mentioning that he was from the same town where the attack was located. Meanwhile, Manshaus was described as “Norwegian” and “white”. Omar El-Hussein was to most often framed as “born and raised in Denmark” and Taimour Abdulwahab “raised in Sweden”, as he moved there at the age of 10. Despite this, they were never described as being Danish or Swedish. Instead, news reporting described El-Hussein as of “Arabic appearance”. For Abdulwahab attention was given to the fact that he was born in Iraq, as well as his “Middle- Eastern appearance” and “Arabic name”. Compared to Manshaus, who was not referred to as “born and raised in Norway”, it could be argued that the news frame suggests that, while they might have lived, they are not properly part of “us”.
Table 6.8: Framing of National and Ethnic Identity – Manshaus (Left) Abdulwahab (Centre) and El-Hussein (Right)
Rakhmat Akilov and Abderrahman Bouanane differ from the others as they were not born nor raised in the country of their attacks, affecting the portrayal as attention focuses on their past, making it apparent that they are not part of “us”.
Table 6.9: Framing of National and Ethnic Identity – Akilov (Left) and Bouanane (Right)
40 6.2.2 Personality
The codes regarding the perpetrators’ personality were categorised into three groups, classifying them as positive, neutral, or negative. The positive codes include words which are used to describe the perpetrator in a positive way, such as “friendly”, “happy”, “popular”, and “good in school or work”, et cetera, as well as codes which describe hobbies, i.e. words which makes the perpetrator seem more “human”. The neutral codes include words which can be considered neither positive or negative descriptions, such as “ordinary/normal”, “quiet”, “calm”, and “alone”. Of course, due to the context, describing the perpetrator as normal could be considered a positive, but to minimise the amount of interpretation and subjectivity to the words, only those which are undoubtedly positive in their meaning no matter the context are coded as positive. The negative codes often describe the perpetrator as “aggressive”, “angry”, “odd/weird”, “unstable”, or “lazy”, which on the contrary to the positive codes are undoubtedly negative in their meaning.
Table 6.10: Framing of Personality – Abdulwahab (Left) and El-Hussein (Right)
Taimour Abdulwahab (Stockholm 2010) was, contrary to the theory, a majority of the time described in a positive note. Out of the positive codes, the most common ones were “happy” (12.5%), “smart” (7%), and “social” (6.4%). Among the negative codes, the most common ones were “angry” (20.5%) and fighter (20.5%). Omar El-Hussein (Copenhagen 2015), however, was overwhelmingly described in negative terms. Most common negative code referred to was “criminal” (66.7%), whereas the most frequent common positive code was “argumentative”, standing for 25% of the positive codes. The reporting of Rakhmat Akilov was similarly portraying him in a negative light. The most frequent positive codes are the two hobbies the newspapers
41 attribute to him, “drinking alcohol” and “partying”, which is 25% of the positive codes. The negative codes, which are 58% of Akilov’s total reported characteristics, comprises of “lazy” and “unstable” (46% of the negative codes). Akilov is also the terrorist with the lowest average (0.05) of positive codes per article.
Table 6.11: Framing of Personality – Akilov (Left) and Bouanane (Right)
Little attention in the coverage of Abderrahman Bouanane’s focuses on his personality. The neutral codes consist of 89% of the total coverage, all of them framing him as alone. The only positive code is his interest in playing pool. A clear difference is apparent when looking at the two white perpetrators. Philip Manshaus is the terrorist both with the highest percentage of positive codes, but also the most positive codes per article (1.1).
Table 6.11: Framing of Personality – Lundin Pettersson (Left) and Manshaus (Right)
The reporting on Anton Lundin Pettersson has 0.81 positive codes per article, which stands for 61% of the total amount of codes describing his persona. The coverage of Lundin Pettersson goes into great length describing his interest in music and his friendliness, while the negative codes are focused on him being awkward socially and an outsider.
42 As for the difference between the “external” and “internal” other, 66% of the codes describing the “internal other’s” persona is positive, whereas only 46% of the codes regarding the “external others’” personality is positive. There is an even bigger difference for the negative codes, as 40% of the personality codes about the “external other” are negative, compared to 18% for the “internal other”. Noteworthy is that a majority of the positive codes regarding the “external” other comes from the reporting on Taimour Abdulwahab. If we are to exclude him, the negative codes would be 61%, while the positive codes would be 25%, of the depiction of the “external other”.
Table 6.13: Comparison: Framing of Personality – “External Other” (Left) vs “Internal Other” (Right)
6.2.3 Causes and Motivations behind the Attack
What causes and motivates a terror attack can have a multitude of explanations; thus, the framing of them represent which issues the newspapers deem most important to highlight.
Table 6.14: Framed Causes of the Attacks
43 All six cases frame the primary causes as issues within the Nordic societies. The codes regarding domestic issues included “alienation”, “segregation”, “increased racism in society”, “polarisation”. “laws against the vulnerable”, et cetera. Meanwhile, codes within the foreign issues frame include “war in the Middle East” and “jealousy towards the West”. The religious issues frame the causes as a consequence of “fundamental Muslims”, “Islam being underdeveloped”, and “anti-Semitism in Islam”. The personal motivations behind the attack are divided into five subcategories: Political frames include codes such as “attack against the nation”, “against immigration”, “revenge for Lars Vilks11”, “revenge for Swedish troops in Afghanistan”, et cetera. The religious frames contain “Islamic revenge action”, “jihad”, and “martyrdom”, among others. Codes framing the motivation as racist include “right-extremism”, “Nazism”, and “race-war”, while misogyny motivates the attack as wanting to “hurt women”. Lastly, when stated that the motivation was unknown, it is counted.
Table 6.15: Framed Motivations of the Perpetrators
Except for Bouanane the attacks of the “external others” are most commonly framed as politically motivated, often as revenge towards foreign policies in the middle east. The “internal others” are instead predominantly framed as being motivated by racism.
11 A Swedish artist who caused international controversy in 2007 when he depicted the drew the prophet Muhammad as a “roundabout dog” for an art-exhibition.
44 6.2.4 Mental Health
The most common codes regarding the framing of the perpetrators’ mental health of the perpetrators include “psychological issues”, “someone who needed help”, “depressed”, and “mental illness”. Out of the total amount of codes regarding mental health, 54% of them concerned the “internal others”, and 46% were about the “external other”.
Table 6.16: Distributions of Codes Regarding Mental Health
Comparing the number of articles about each attack, the distribution of codes regarding mental health shows how big of a difference there is between the two groups. Despite Pettersson Lundin receiving less articles than all the “external others” (except Bouanane), almost half of all codes regarding mental health is written about him. The articles regarding the “internal other” mentioned their mental health 0,15 times per article on average, while it was only mentioned 0,02 times per article on average about the “external other”.
6.2.5 Terrorist or Perpetrator
The description of the perpetrator as either a terrorist or criminal plays a great deal with how we perceive attacks. Therefore, the difference in whether the newspapers describe the six perpetrators as either a terrorist or criminal is analysed.
45 The criminal frame includes both more impartial words like “perpetrator” and “murderer”, but also more descriptive words of the attack, such as “shooter” or “suicide-bomber”.
Table 6.17: Comparison of Terrorist vs Perpetrator
The Stockholm 2017 terrorist, Rakhmat Akilov, has the highest percentage of being framed as a terrorist, and though the newspapers almost unanimously framed the Stockholm 2010 bombing as an act of terror, Taimour Abdulwahab is only framed as a terrorist 9% of the time, with a large majority of the time framed as a “suicide-bomber”. When comparing the “internal” vs “external” other, it is again visible that the “external other” is framed as a terrorist more often. However, there is about as much focus on the “descriptive” framing to both groups. An outlier within the “external other” is Abderrahman Bouanane. Though the newspapers often framed the attack as terrorism (55% of the time), they rarely frame him as a terrorist.
6.3 The Portrayal of the Casual Actors
Within this subchapter, the portrayal of the casual actors in the attacks is analysed. Casual actors are those who take part in the attack in one way or another, but not as the perpetrator of them. This includes the national leaders of the Nordic countries, as well as the victims of the attacks.
46 6.3.1 National Leaders
A terror attack is, as assessed previously, seen as an attack on the nation. Thus they are of utmost concern for the highest national leaders of the attacked nation, making them more likely than a crime to be referred to than in news coverage. Codes regarding national leaders thus contain names of the highest political leaders of the Nordic countries at the time of the attack, as well as the monarch families of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway.
Table 6.18: Average Amount of References to National Leaders per Article
Stockholm 2017 is the attack with the most amount of references per article to a country leader. It is also the only attack which frames Stefan Löfven, the Swedish Prime Minister, as the “Father of the Nation”. Stockholm 2017 was also the attack with the most amount of different Nordic national leaders referred to, as every Nordic countries’ leaders were mentioned. Trollhättan has the second most references per article. However, there was only one reference to another Nordic country’s leader, as Erna Solberg12 reportedly commented on the attack at one instance, the rest of the references stemming from Stefan Löfven and members of the Swedish Royal Family.
12 Norway’s Prime Minister at the time of the attack.
47 The reporting gave the least amount of references to national leaders in coverage of the Turku attack. Those made referred to both the Finnish Prime Minister Juha Sipilä and President Sauli Niinistö alongside Stefan Löfven. In the reporting of the “external other”, a code regarding a political leader was averaging 0.78 times per article, while for the “internal other” it occurred 0.61 times per article. By far the most referred to national leader (50% of the mentions of a national leader) is Stefan Löfven, followed by Fredrik Reinfeldt, despite only being the Prime Minister of Sweden during the attack in Stockholm 2010 (12%), closely followed by the Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf (11%).
6.3.2 Victims
As explained in the theoretical framework, previous research has shown that victims of a framed act of terror are more likely to be called heroes than victims of a framed crime, even though they might not act extraordinarily.
Table 6.19: Framing of Victims
As the Stockholm 2010 suicide-bombing did not kill anyone but the perpetrator himself and mildly injured two bystanders, there were no references to any victims. For the other attacks, the most common framing of the victims is to describe them as heroes, except for the Stockholm 2017 attack
48 6.4 Proposed Responses
The responses proposed in consequence of the attack can indicate where the blame of the attack is directed. The responses are grouped into three categories, focusing on either Direct, Targeted Policies”, or Long-Term Policies.
Table 6.20: Comparison of Proposed Responses
As a consequence of terror attacks, the public tends to demand more drastic measures. The codes categorised as proposals for direct requests are for instance “more resources to the police”, “stricter punishments”, “surveillance” – both concerning data tracking and more surveillance cameras, as well as “traffic obstacles” and “more police/security guards present on the streets”. Instead of suggesting long-term strategies which aim to prevent terrorism in the future, the proposals categorised as direct proposals rather suggest “quicker” solutions which do not require societal fixes, but rather an increased law and order to prevent potential attacks by scaring them with the potential consequences. Some proposed measures are instead affecting specific groups of society, directing the blame on the targeted group as a whole instead of the individual perpetrator. The targeting policies proposed often have less of a specific aim than those categorised under direct responses. Codes categorised within this group calls for stopping/decreasing immigration, stricter border controls, depriving dual- citizenship for prosecuted criminals, control all travelling outside the EU borders,
49 finding and expelling undocumented refugees, or a lock-in of asylum seekers to prevent them from disappearing when denied residency. Proposals categorised as long-term may not have as immediate of an effect as the direct proposals and do not target specific groups, but instead aim to work over a longer time to prevent terrorism and extremism in the future through societal changes. They can involve “more including city planning”, “working with mental health”, “raise knowledge about Islam”, “phone lines for those suspecting that a family member may be in the risk zone of becoming an extremist”, and “reducing segregation and “polarisation” in society. Although Anton Lundin Pettersson was framed as a white supremacist actively targeting people of other than white ethnicities, only 18% of the newspapers’ proposed responses are targeting policies.
Table 6.21: Proposed Responses to Trollhättan 2017
The Copenhagen 2015 attack received the most amount of proposals on average as a proposal was raised 2.17 times per article, most of them regarding direct proposals, which was also the highest out of all the attacks.
Table 6.22: Average Amount of Proposed Responses per Article
50 The Stockholm 2010 attack had the most proposed targeted policies, both on average per article and percentage-wise. A majority of them focusing on finding and expelling undocumented refugees, and stricter border control.
Table 6.23: Proposed Responses – Comparison between the “External” (Left) and “Internal Other” (Right).
Comparing the “external” to the “internal other”, it becomes clear that the proposed responses regarding the “external other” are more focused on targeted policies, whereas the “internal other” are mainly receiving proposals regarding direct and long-term responses. Furthermore, almost twice as many mentions of proposed responses are made on average per article in the reporting of the “external other’s” attacks.
Table 6.24: Average Amount of Responses – Comparison between “External” (Bottom) and “Internal Other” (Top)
Direct responses are the main focus for both groups, with 0.39 mentions per article for the “internal other” and 0.54 per article for the “external”. The long- term proposals occur about as frequently for both groups, while targeted responses are more than three times as likely to occur in the articles regarding the “external other”. Additionally, as explained earlier, the targeted responses concerning the “internal other” still target immigrants and minorities. .
51 7 Discussion
The analysis has shown that there are some crucial differences in the news reporting of the six attacks. Within this chapter, the analysis will be summarised and discussed, and each subchapter corresponds to one operational question. The third operational question regarding the framing of the casual actors is not discussed further since, as shown in the analysis, there is no significant difference in their descriptions. There is seemingly no significant change if the victims are portrayed as heroes based on whether the attack is framed as an act of terror or crime. Instead, the deciding factor appears to be that the framed heroes each performed an act to stop the terrorist in which they got injured. Furthermore, in the case of national leaders, the most crucial factor seems not to be the framing of the attack, but instead whether the attack occurred in the same country the newspapers come from.
7.1 Framing of the Attack
The influx of illustrative words regarding the attacks of the “external other” compared to the “internal other” appears to confirm Entman’s (1994) theory that actions by an “outsider” are perceived as more severe than those executed by an “insider”. On average, illustrative words were used twice as often for attacks perpetrated by “external others”. Furthermore, the findings from Morin (2016) of how framed acts of terror are more likely to be seen as part of a “bigger mechanism” threatening the West correlates to this study’s discoveries. The “external others” were more often connected to terror networks and previous attacks. Connections to previous right- wing attacks were still made in regards for the “internal other”, however, due to the lack of connections to any groups, it is rather framed as the act of a lone terrorist. Overall, almost 99% of the total amount of connections to terror groups were to so-called “Islamic terror networks”, the conclusion being made that terror
52 attacks are something highly connected to Islamic groups rather than right-wing networks. As for the label of the attack, acts from the “internal others” were only framed as an act of terror 24% of the time, while attacks of the “external others” were framed as terrorism 89% of the time. The difference further reinforces the notion that a future threat is perceived more likely from the “external other” than the “internal other”.
7.2 Framing of the Terrorist
The first significant difference in the framing of the terrorist is the number of references to their respective religious belief. All “external others’” Islamic faith was thoroughly discussed, while the “internal others’” Christian or atheistic beliefs, were barely mentioned. This significant difference could be argued to influence the construction of negative stereotypes regarding Muslims as being more likely to be terrorists due to Islam getting significantly more exposure than other faiths. As explained by Dearing and Rogers (1996:4), exposure has the power to transform a social perception into public opinions. While articles in the newspapers regarding the attacks of the “external others” are explaining the fact that terrorism is not a part of Islam, the staggering difference in frequency of mentions between their faith is crucial. Furthermore, there is a big difference in the attention given to the perpetrators national and ethnic background. Anton Lundin Pettersson’s nationality is not discussed at all while the newspapers are describing Philip Manshaus as a “white Norwegian”. Meanwhile, Taimour Abdulwahab and Omar El-Hussein, who were either born or raised in the country of their respective attack, were framed as outsiders. The newspapers often described Abdulwahab’s Iraqi past as well as both their Arabic/Middle Eastern appearance, suggesting that while the newspapers acknowledge that “they” are part of “our” society, they are still different. As for Abderrahman Bouanane and Rakhmat Akilov, plenty of references were made respectively to their Moroccan and Uzbek nationality, as well as them being refugees or asylum seekers, making it clear that they were framed as “outsiders”.
53 The describing of the personality of the terrorists in the newspaper articles can show to what extent they are humanised or dehumanised. In other words, to what extent they are seen as human beings, and as a consequence, how much empathy the audience has for the person behind the attack (Keen, 1988:16). As demonstrated in the analysis (see table 6.13), there is a significant difference how the two groups are portrayed. 66% of the codes regarding the personality for the “internal other” are positive, while only 46% for the “external other” are positive. Furthermore, a majority of the positive codes regarding the “external other’s” personality are in regard to Abdulwahab. If he is excluded from the equation of the “external other” only 25% of the codes would be considered positive. As Abdulwahab’s attack was the earliest, five years earlier than the next attack, it could be a sign of the upsurge of right-wing parties gaining influence in the political debate. However, it is too small of a sample to suggest it as a certainty. Another argument for the difference in the description of their personalities could be the issue of access to people close to the attacker as the terrorists living in Sweden for a long time are two of the most positively framed personalities. While this argument could perhaps apply to Akilov and Bouanane, it does not explain the large difference between Manshaus and El-Hussein: both were born and raised in the capital of a neighbouring Nordic country to Sweden, hence access to friends or family should not have a significant divergence. As demonstrated by a multitude of previous studies discussed in chapter three there is often a significant difference in the attention given to the terrorist’s mental health. Although none of the terrorists analysed were described as “psychopathic maniacs”, mental health was referred to seven times more often for the “internal other”, attributing the attacks to mental illness. The causes of the attacks were a majority of the time framed as “domestic issues” for all the terrorists. On the contrary to the “internal other”, all “external others” received other suggestions regarding “foreign” and “religious issues”, which indicates that the issue for the “external others” could be from outside, and not a problem with “our” society. Perhaps, as Lewis (2012) argues, it is due to a reluctance to look at the “ugly side” of Western policies. The discoveries are very much coherent to the previous research outlined within chapter 3.2: the “external others” are differentiated from “us” based on nationality, ethnicity, and religion are more likely to be described in a much more
54 negative light. Ultimately, the “external others” are framed as terrorists almost twice as often as the “internal others”.
7.3 Framing of the Proposed Responses
The proposed responses can give a clear indicator of where the blame for the attack is directed. Thus, as explained in the analysis, the proposals are divided into three categories: direct, targeted, and long-term proposals. Direct policies were the most common type of proposals for all attacks except Turku 2017. They stood for 58% of the proposals regarding the “internal other”, and 44% regarding the “external other”. Targeted policies, however, were found 4.5 times as often per article regarding the attacks by the “external others”, which implicitly suggest that the blame for the attack is on the entire group sharing the same background or identity of the terrorist. There was also a larger amount of long-term proposals regarding the “internal other”, which suggests that those attacks are seen as consequences of issues within “our” society, while the issue needed to be resolved for the “external others” are found within the targeted groups. There is no certainty, however, that the terrorists were radicalised in their country of birth and not within any of the Nordic countries. Additionally, the attacks by the “external other” received almost twice as many proposed responses per article as the “internal other”. The difference relates to the previous research proclaiming that acts from the “enemy” are seen as more severe than from those “within us” (Entman, 1994; Silverstein & Flamenbaum, 2989:53; Zur, 1991:368f). Additionally, it relates to Woods’ (2011) discovery that the danger from “radical Islamic groups”, rather than “homegrown terrorists” are perceived as a more severe threat. Furthermore, if one compares Stockholm 2010 to the later attacks by the “external others” (see table 6.22), one can notice a significant difference in the number of targeted policies, as it receives less than half the amount of references as Copenhagen 2015 (the attack with the second least proposed targeted policies per article within the “external others”). It could once again be an indicator of the changing political landscape, as more demands are laid against targeted groups for the attacks in 2015 and 2017.
55 8 Conclusion
The aim of this thesis was to uncover any potential differences in how terrorists are depicted in Swedish newspapers’ coverage on acts of terror in the Nordic countries during the 2010s. To do so, the reporting from four newspapers regarding six different cases were compared using a quantitative content analysis, using Entman’s (1993) theory of framing. The study has demonstrated the differences in how the newspapers describe the six attacks. To answer the initial research question, the framing of attacks by the considered “external other” are judged to be: more severe; of a higher probability for future attacks; receive more speculated connections to previous attacks and terror groups; and more likely to be framed as an act of terrorism. Moreover, the external other is more likely to be described using: their religious beliefs; a negative portrayal of their personality; less of a discussion regarding their mental health; the causes deemed to a higher degree be due to religious and foreign issues; and being politically motivated. Lastly, the proposed differences between the “internal” and “external other” further suggest that the “problem needed to be fixed” is found to a larger degree within either targeted groups or abroad. While there was no clear difference in the framing of the casual actors, as Entman’s theory of framing does not require all steps to be fulfilled, the thesis concludes that there is a clear difference in the reporting between terror attacks in the Nordic countries. However, the study is to an extent limited to the theories used to describe the attacks and cannot provide a definite answer as of why the framing is different. While, due to the consistent divergence between the “external” and “internal other”, one can conclude that there is a difference in reporting, some of the differences could be argued to be a result of other factors. This opens up for future research, such as analysing the changes using, for example, the 24/7-news-cycle theory. Another interesting suggestion for future research would be to apply the
56 theory of peace journalism, to further investigate whether the violence is in the focus of the reporting. To conclude, clear biases are apparent in the reporting, though it is hard to provide a definite conclusion that it is solely due to the difference of the perpetrators national, ethnic, or religious identities. Instead, other factors which need to be studied could also initiate the differences.
57 Appendix 1: Physical Newspapers
Total Amount of Pages Dedicated in each Newspaper per Terror Attack:
Stockholm Copenhagen Trollhättan Stockholm Turku Bærum
2010 2015 2015 2017 2017 2019
Aftonbladet 95 33 42 152 9 14 Dagens 39 33 28 67 14 7 Nyheter Expressen 81 45 50 189 14 7 Svenska 52 28 20 55 10 6 Dagsbladet Total: Total: Total: Total: Total: Total:
267 139 141 463 49 34
Total Amount of Articles Dedicated in each Newspaper per Terror Attack:
Stockholm Köpenhamn Trollhättan Stockholm Turku Bærum
2010 2015 2015 2017 2017 2019
Aftonbladet 65 25 32 87 7 12 Dagens 47 36 24 150 11 7 Nyheter Expressen 55 35 31 79 7 6 Svenska 38 23 17 55 8 6 Dagsbladet Total: Total: Total: Total: Total: Total:
205 119 104 371 33 31
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63