Coverage of the September 11 Attacks in the New York Times and Le Monde V1

FRAMING ANALYSIS OF THE NEW YORK TIMES AND LE MONDE FOLLOWING THE ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11 By ALLISON IRENE AIKEN A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN MASS COMMUNICATIONS UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2003 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to first and foremost thank my committee chair, Dr. Kurt Kent, for his continued support of this thesis the past two years. I would also like to thank Dr. Leonard Tipton and Dr. Ido Oren for their support. I would additionally like to thank Dr. Julie Dodd for her continued support over the past two years on this research and my general well being. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ..................................................................................................II LIST OF TABLES............................................................................................................ VI ABSTRACT.....................................................................................................................VII CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................1 What Is the Role of the Press?......................................................................................1 The Decline of International News in the American Press...........................................5 American and French Press ..........................................................................................8 Definitions ....................................................................................................................9 Justification for Study.................................................................................................10 2 REVIEW OF LITERATURE.....................................................................................12 Framing.......................................................................................................................12 The Elite Press ............................................................................................................18 Description of Newspapers Used for this Study.........................................................20 Le Monde.............................................................................................................20 The New York Times............................................................................................22 Summary.....................................................................................................................24 Hypotheses..................................................................................................................24 3 METHOD ...................................................................................................................28 Content Analysis.........................................................................................................28 Quantitative Content Analysis....................................................................................30 Qualitative Content Analysis......................................................................................30 Study Materials...........................................................................................................31 Variables.....................................................................................................................33 iii Frames .................................................................................................................33 Sources ................................................................................................................37 Analysis ......................................................................................................................39 Reliability ...................................................................................................................40 Validity .......................................................................................................................41 4 FINDINGS..................................................................................................................43 Brief Overview ...........................................................................................................43 Results of Application of Method...............................................................................45 Nature of Sample ........................................................................................................47 Reliability Analysis ....................................................................................................47 Descriptive Analysis and Hypotheses Results............................................................48 5 DISCUSSION.............................................................................................................51 Results of Application of Method...............................................................................51 Descriptive Analysis Discussion ................................................................................53 Post-hoc analysis ........................................................................................................56 Summary of Hypotheses.............................................................................................60 6 CONCLUSION...........................................................................................................64 Summary.....................................................................................................................64 Conclusions.................................................................................................................67 Limitations..................................................................................................................69 Future Research ..........................................................................................................71 Implications ................................................................................................................73 APPENDIX A CODING PROTOCOL...............................................................................................74 I. Project Description...........................................................................................74 II. Sample ............................................................................................................75 III. Length to be coded ........................................................................................75 IV. Coding Log....................................................................................................75 V. Filling in the coding sheets.............................................................................76 iv B DATA .........................................................................................................................81 LIST OF REFERENCES...................................................................................................90 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .............................................................................................93 v LIST OF TABLES Table page Table 3.1 Variable definitions............................................................................................34 Table 4.1 Number of articles each day ..............................................................................44 Table 4.2 Frame usage .......................................................................................................44 Table 4.3 Source eliteness..................................................................................................45 Table 4.4 Source in relation to event .................................................................................45 Table B.1 The New York Times........................................................................................81 Table B.2 Le Monde ..........................................................................................................85 vi Abstract of Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Master of Arts in Mass Communication FRAMING ANALYSIS OF THE NEW YORK TIMES AND LE MONDE FOLLOWING THE ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11 By Allison Irene Aiken May 2003 Chair: Kurt Kent Major Department: Journalism and Communications The terrorist attacks of September 11 shocked the entire world. The media frenzy that ensued was unlike anything ever witnessed. The present study looks at the first ten days after the attacks to discover, using framing theory, reporting differences between the United States and France. Using The New York Times and Le Monde, the present study content analyzed a ten-day period of articles about the attacks. Five media frames defined in previous research were employed as a means of categorization for the articles. In addition to analyzing the frames used in each article, the present study also analyzed the type of source and the eliteness of the source used in each article. There was a significant difference in the way the two newspapers used the five media frames and elite sources. Le Monde used the economic consequences frame more significantly than The New York Times did, and The New York Times used the human- vii interest frame and conflict frame significantly more than Le Monde used them. Le Monde also used elite sources significantly more

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