Page 1 of 7

European Journal of Business &

Social Sciences

Available at https://ejbss.org/

ISSN: 2235-767X

Volume 07 Issue 03

March 2019

Available online: https://ejbss.org/ P a g e | 647

The Print Media Covers Terrorism News Prominent In Mass Society- A Content

Analysis of Popular Paper ‘The Hindu’

Shyni Thankarajan, Assistant Professor,

Noorul Islam College of Arts and Science, Kumaracoil

(Affiliated in Manonmaniam Sundaranar University)

Abstract

The paper is about the print media one of the prominent mass communication that

covers the terrorism news in tabulation and column of space occupied in major pages with

pictorial representation or through articles or through cartoon-scape is explained through

content analysis. The methodology used in this paper is quantitative analysis on the tabulation

of column, content, picturesque or through any other editorial aspects. The paper done a detail

sampling on The Hindu newspaper and is the largest selling print medium in South India. The

finding of this research paper is that news stories for a month put together had 0.711% entire

space occupied in the paper and three editorial news in editor page are consequently has no

conclusive for such news and such coverage occupies are more.

Keywords:Terrorism, Column of Space, Quantitative Analysis, The Hindu Newspaper

Introduction

Ever since media has catered to the concept of a mass society which is predominant now,

media has played various roles. For starters, it mirrors events that happen around us in

everyday lives. Secondly, it acts as a gatekeeper by deciding which information reaches us, from

different corners of the world. Thirdly, the media serves as a platform or a forum for presenting

information or ideas to a mass audience and is also a disseminator of information (Denis

McQuail:Theory of Mass Communication,6

th edition, Sage Publications)

Despite certain norms and guidelines being set for journalistic standards and ethics, the way

reporting has been done by media has always been under study. The coverage of terrorism is

no exception to this. Epochal events like the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center led to

books and articles being written examining media’s portrayal of terrorism. Framing Terrorism:

The News Media, the Government, and the Public by Pippa Norris, Montague Kern and Marion

Just (Routledge, 2003) talks about how governments, security forces and terrorist groups look

at ways to manipulate the news, including issues of formal and informal government censorship

Page 2 of 7

European Journal of Business &

Social Sciences

Available at https://ejbss.org/

ISSN: 2235-767X

Volume 07 Issue 03

March 2019

Available online: https://ejbss.org/ P a g e | 648

and curbs on the freedom of press. They discuss how the events of 9/11 were reported and

how the reporting made Americans wary and troubled about possible future attacks.

With extremist organizations like the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) growing more

and more powerful with each day, terrorist attacks have become quite a common occurrence

these days. As of September 11, the number of terrorist incidents (including bombings,

shootings, executions and stabbings) across the world is 1243 in 2016 alone according to online

reports. With some studies stating that media coverage of terrorism leads to further violence, it

has become all the more important for the press to take its responsibility as a fourth estate

seriously and be cautious while reporting such incidents. It thus becomes important to

understand how the print medium reports such acts of terrorism and quantitatively analyze

such content.

Review of Literature

Given the paramount importance of understanding media coverage of terrorism, numerous

studies have been undertaken by researchers in the past on the same. While some of them

aimed at understanding media’s portrayal of Muslims (Sofia HayatiYusof, Fauziah Hassan,

MdSalleh Hassan, MohdNizam Osman) there are others which study how media covers terrorist

attacks in general (Michael Jetter) or how the European print media discusses jihadist terrorism

in Europe (Sybille Reinke de Buitrago). There are other areas of research as well, like how media

shapes public opinion when it comes to terrorism (Kevin Daly), or how it becomes an enabler of

terrorism (SoniseLumbaca and David H Gray), how reporting is done by Kenyan media

(Abraham K Kisang) and about rehabilitation and deradicalization in Indonesia (Zora A.

Sukabdi). A few other important studies also revolve around cyberterrorism (Lee Jarvis, Stuart

Macdonald and Lella Nouri), peace journalism (Nicole Yang Lai Fong) and examining how a

specific terrorist outfit uses digital devices for persuasion (Julia E. Wright and Michael

Bachmann).

The methodologies adopted by the research scholars vary according to their objectives. But the

most commonly used method seems to be content and discourse analysis (Sofia HayatiYusof,

Fauziah Hassan, MdSalleh Hassan, MohdNizam Osman and Abraham K Kisang, and Julia E.

Wright and Michael Bachmann and Michael Jetter and Sybille Reinke de Buitrago, Zora A.

Sukabdi). Other methods include case studies (Kevin Daly, SoniseLumbaca and David H Gray,

and Nicole Yang Lai Fong) and surveys (Lee Jarvis, Stuart Macdonald and Lella Nouri).

These studies have thrown up some interesting findings. While some showed that very few

articles portray Muslims in a positive light (Sofia HayatiYusof, Fauziah Hassan, MdSalleh Hassan,

Page 3 of 7

European Journal of Business &

Social Sciences

Available at https://ejbss.org/

ISSN: 2235-767X

Volume 07 Issue 03

March 2019

Available online: https://ejbss.org/ P a g e | 649

MohdNizam Osman) there were others that revealed that newspapers like the New York Times

gave more coverage to suicide attacks (Michael Jetter) and that media and terrorism are

intrinsically linked, depending on each other (Kevin Daly) and that media coverage depends on

the attack type (Sybille Reinke de Buitrago), with media functioning as an enabler of terrorism

(SoniseLumbaca and David H Gray).

Furthermore, a few others revealed that the media offered people known or suspected to have

links with terrorists a platform to justify their activities and/or seek public sympathy (Abraham

K Kisang), the way Sin Chew Daily handled racial controversy (Nicole Yang Lai Fong) and that

rehabilitation requires some qualities such as community re-integration, less stigmatization,

restoration to previous condition, skills improvement, self-introspection, self-critical, context

understanding, better mental calculation, accepting local wisdom, and mental progress (Zora A.

Sukabdi). The study on state cyberterrorism revealed general agreement that states have

perpetrated cyberattacks, with respondents offering a number of examples including Stuxnet

and the attacks on Estonia and Georgia (Lee Jarvis, Stuart Macdonald and Lella Nouri) while the

power of using digital devices for extremist propaganda can be seen through Julia E. Wright and

Michael Bachmann’s study on Al-Qaeda’s use of the same.

Methodology

This research paper willinvolve a content analysis ofone of the largest selling newspapers in

South India,The Hindu. 30 samples of the newspaper in the month of July, 2016 were taken to

do a quantitative analysis in order to figure out the coverage of terrorist attacks by that

newspaper. The quantitative analysis includes tabulating details of the space and prominence

given to terrorist activities in the newspapers during that month as well as the kind of attacks

which were given more space.

Quantitative Analysis

For simplicity and ease of understanding, terrorism-related news was broken down into

different genres such as news articles, editorials, human interest stories and pictorial

representations to understand how much coverage they each received from the newspaper.

News stories