Framing ideology: How Time magazine represents nationalism and identities through visual reporting

Tania Cantrell-Rosas-Moreno
Dustin Harp
Ingrid Bachmann
638

Abstract

Visual images in news photographs guide individuals’ understandings of
people, places and events, especially when news audiences are unable to personally experience those represented images. When 41 Time newsmagazine covers from the first five years of the U.S.-led war on Iraq are considered through a framing analysis, four frames surface: The Sanitized War, Against the Powers-That-Be; The American Soldier in a Time of War; and The "Other" of the War, or "Us versus Them." These findings highlight the power of media messages to frame identity ideologies and stress the importance of complementing quantitative studies with qualitative approaches.
Keywords:
Identity, international communication, feminist media studies, ideology, journalism, media and war, qualitative methods

Authors

Tania Cantrell-Rosas-Moreno
Dustin Harp
Ingrid Bachmann

References

ALVES, Rosental C., “Status of media in Brazil”, Encyclopedia of International Media and Communications, 1, 2003, pp. 29-138.

ANDERSEN, Robin, “Gendered media culture and the imagery of war”, Feminist Media Studies, 5(3), 2005, pp. 367-369.

BARKER-PLUMMER, Bernadette and BOAZ, Cynthia, “War news as masculinist discourse”, Feminist Media Studies, 5(3), 2005, pp. 370-374.

BERGER, Arthur Asa, Narratives in popular culture, media, and everyday life, Sage, Thousand Oaks, 1997.

BERGER, Arthur Asa, Media analysis techniques, Sage, Thousand Oaks, 2005.

BISHOP, Hywel and JAWORSKI, Adam, “‘We beat ‘em’: Nationalism and the hegemony of homogeneity in the British press reportage of Germany versus England during Euro 2000”, Discourse & Society, 14(3), 2003, pp. 243-271.

BOURDIEU, Pierre, “The forms of capital”, in RICHARDSON, J. G. (ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education, Greenwood Press, New York, 1986, pp. 241-258.

BROOKES, Rod, “Newspapers and national identity: the BSE/CJD crisis and the British press”, Media, Culture & Society, 21(2), 1999, pp. 247-263.

CALABRESE, Andrew, “Casus Belli: U.S. media and the justification of the Iraq War”, Television & New Media, 6(2), 2005, pp. 153-175.

CHAPMAN, Terrence L. and REITER, Dan, “The United Nations Security Council and the rally ‘round the flag effect”, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 48(6), 2004, pp. 886-909.

COTTAM, Martha L. and COTTAM, Richard, Nationalism and politics: The political behavior of nation states, Lynne Rienner, Boulder, 2001.

CRIST, William G. and JOHNSON, Sammye, “Images through Time: Man of the Year Covers,” Journalism Quarterly, 62(4), 1985, pp. 891-893.

DEL ZOTTO, Augusta. C., “Weeping women, wringing hands: how the mainstream media stereotyped women’s experiences in Kosovo”, Journal of Gender Studies, 22(2), 2002, pp. 141-150.

DOMKE, David, “A matter of faith: The White House and the press”, Nieman Reports, 58(2), 2004, pp. 68-70.

ENTMAN, Robert M., “Framing media power”, in D’ANGELO, Paul and KUYPERS, Jim A. (eds.), Doing news framing analysis: Empirical and theoretical perspectives, Routledge, New York, 2010, pp. 331-355.

ENTMAN, Robert M., “Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm”, Journal of Communication, 43(4), 1993, pp. 51-58.

ERJAVEC, Karmen and VOLCIC, Zala, “The Kosovo Battle: Media’s recontextualization of the Serbian nationalistic discourses”, The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 12(3), 2007, pp. 67-86.

FAHMY, Shahira, “‘They took it down’: Exploring determinants of visual reporting in the toppling of the Saddam Statue in national and international newspapers”, Mass Communication & Society, 10(2), 2007, pp. 143-170.

FAHMY, Shahira, “Contrasting visual frames of our times: A framing analysis of English- and Arabiclanguage press coverage of war and terrorism”, International Communication Gazette, 72(8), 2010, pp. 695-717.

GAMSON, William A., and MODIGLIANI, Andre, “Media discourse and public opinion on nuclear power: A constructionist approach”, American Journal of Sociology, 95(1), 1989, pp. 1-37.

GRIFFIN, Michael, “Picturing America’s ‘War on Terrorism’ in Afghanistan and Iraq: Photographic motifs as news frames”, Journalism, 5(4), 2004, pp. 381-402.

GRIFFIN, Michael and LEE, Jongsoo, “Picturing the Gulf War: Constructing an image of war in Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 72(4), 1995, pp. 813-825.

HARP, Dustin and Struckman, Sara, “The articulation of Lynndie England to Abu Ghraib: Gender ideologies, war, and the construction of reality”, Journal of Magazine and New Media Research, 11(2), 2010, pp. 2-23.

HARP, Dustin and Bachmann, Ingrid, “News judgment: The framing of contemporary motherhood in the United States”, Media Report to Women, 36(3), 2008, pp. 8-14.

HARP, Dustin, LOKE, Jaime, and BACHMANN, Ingrid, “Voices of dissent in the Iraq war: Moving from deviance to legitimacy?”, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 87(3), 2010, pp. 467-483.

HAUGHNEY, Chistine, “Magazines catching eyes, and clicks”, The New York Times, 20 May 2012. Available on: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/business/media/time-and-newsweekmagazine-covers-catch-eyes-and-clicks.html.

HUNT, William Ben, Getting to war: Predicting international conflict with mass media indicators, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1997.

HUTCHESON, John, DOMKE, David, BILLEAUDEAUX, Andre and GARLAND, Philip, “U.S. national identity, political elites, and a patriotic press following September 11”, Political Communication, 21(1), 2004, pp. 27-50.

IYENGAR, Shanto and KINDER, Donald R., News that matters: Television and American opinion, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1987.

KING, Cynthia and LESTER, Paul M., “Photographic coverage during the Persian Gulf and Iraqi Wars in three U.S. newspapers”, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 82(3), 2005, pp. 623- 637.

KOLMER, Christian and SEMETKO, Holli A., “Framing the Iraq War: Perspectives from American, U.K., Czech, German, South African, and Al-Jazeera News”, American Behavioral Scientist, 52(5), 2009, pp. 643-656.

KONSTANTINIDOU, Christina, “Death, lamentation and the photographic representation of the other in the second Iraq War in Greek newspapers”, International Journal of Cultural Studies, 10(2), 2007, pp. 147-166.

LE, Elisabeth. “Collective memories and representations of national identity in editorials. Obstacles to a renegotiation of intercultural relations”, Journalism Studies, 7(5), 2006, pp. 708-728.

LEMISH, Dafna, “The media gendering of war and conflict”, Feminist Media Studies, 5(3), 275-280.

LEHMANN, Ingrid A., “Exploring the transatlantic media divide over Iraq: How and why U.S. and German media differed in reporting on UN weapons inspections in Iraq, 2002-2003”, International Journal of Press/Politics, 10(1), 2005, pp. 63-89.

LEWIS, Seth C. and REESE, Stephen D., “What is the War on Terror? Framing through the eyes of journalists”, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 86(1), 2009, pp. 85-102.

LINCOLN, Yvonna S. and GUBA, Egon G., Naturalistic inquiry, Sage, Newbury Park, 1985.

LOUW, Eric, “The ‘War against Terrorism’: A Public Relations Challenge for the Pentagon”, Gazette: The International Journal for Communications Studies, 65(3), 2003, pp. 211-230.

LOUW, Eric, The media and cultural production, Sage, London, 2001.

LOWRY, Dennis T., “Network TV news framing of good vs. bad economic news under democrat and republican presidents: A lexical analysis of political bias”, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 85(3), 2008, pp. 483-498.

MCMANUS, Marjorie, “The cover story”, in Magazine publishing management, Folio Magazine Publishing, New Canaan, p. 195.

MELKOTE, Srinivas R., “News framing during a time of impending war: An examination of coverage in The New York Times prior to the 2003 Iraq War”, The International Communication Gazette, 71(7), 2009, pp. 547-559.

MIRZOEFF, Nicholas, Watching Babylon: The War in Iraq and global visual culture, Routledge, New York/London, 2005.

NINA-PAZARZI, E. and TSANGARIS, M., “Constructing women’s image in TV commercials: The Greek case”, Indian Journal of Gender Studies, 15(1), 2008, pp. 29-50.

NISBET, Matthew C. “Knowledge into action: Framing the debates over climate change and poverty”, in D’ANGELO, Paul and KUYPERS, Jim A. (eds.), Doing news framing analysis: Empirical and theoretical perspectives, Routledge, New York, 2010, pp. 43-83.

PARRY, Katy, “Images of liberation? Visual framing, humanitarianism and British press photography during the 2003 Iraq invasion”, Media, Culture & Society, 33(8), 2011, pp. 1.185-1.201.

PERLMUTTER, David, Visions of war: Picturing warfare from the stone age to the cyber age, St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1999.

POLLETTA, Francesca, “Culture is not just in your head”, in GOODWIN, Jeff and JASPER, James M. (eds.), Rethinking social movements: Structure, meaning, and emotion, Rowman & Littlefield, New York, 2004, pp. 97-110.

POPP, Richard K. and MENDELSON, Andrew. L., “‘X’-ing out enemies: Time magazine, visual discourse, and the war in Iraq”, Journalism, 11(2), 2010, pp. 203-221.

RAVI, Narasimhan, “Looking beyond flawed journalism: How national interests, patriotism, and cultural values shaped the coverage of the Iraq War”, International Journal of Press/Politics, 10(1), 2005, pp. 45-62.

REESE, Stephen D., “Finding frames in a web of culture: The case of the War on Terror”, in D’ANGELO, Paul and KUYPERS, Jim A. (eds.), Doing news framing analysis: Empirical and theoretical perspectives, Routledge, New York, 2010, pp. 17-42.

RICHARDSON, Laurel, “Writing: A method of inquiry”, in DENZIN, Norman K. and LINCOLN, Yvonna S. (eds.), Handbook of qualitative research, Sage, Thousand Oaks, 1994, pp. 516-529.

SCHLESINGER, Philip, “Media, the political order and national identity”, Media, Culture & Society, 13(3), 1991, pp. 297-308.

SCHWALBE, Carol B, SILCOCK, B. William and KEITH, Susan, “Visual framing of the early weeks of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq: Applying the master war narrative to electronic and print images”, Journal of Broadcasting & Electric Media, 52(3), 2008, pp. 448-465.

SILCOCK, B. William, “The battle of ideological images: CNN vs. FOX in visual framing of the invasion of Iraq”, Electronic News, 2 (3), 2008, pp. 153-177.

SPIKER, Ted, “Cover coverage: How U.S. magazine covers captured the emotions of the September 11 attacks –and how editors and art directors decided on those themes”, Journal of Magazine and New Media Research, 5(2), 2003, 1-18.

SUMNER, David, “Sixty-four years of Life: What did its 2,128 covers cover?”, Journal of Magazine and New Media Research, 4(2), 2002, pp. 1-20.

STINSON, Peter, “Active duty demographic profile”, U.S.A. Department of Defense, September 2008. Available on: http://www.slideshare.net/pastinson/us-military-active-duty-demographic-profilepresentation.

VAN GORP, Baldwin, “Strategies to take subjectivity out of framing analysis”, in D’ANGELO, Paul and KUYPERS, Jim A. (eds.), Doing news framing analysis: Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives, Routledge, New York, 2010, pp. 84-109.

VAN GORP, Baldwin and VAN DER GOOT, Margot J., “Sustainable food and agriculture: Stakeholder’s frames”, Communication, Culture & Critique, 5(2), 2012, pp. 127-148.

VAN GORP, Baldwin and VERCRUYSSE, Tom, “Frames and counter-frames giving meaning to dementia: A framing analysis of media content”, Social Science & Medicine, 74(8), 2012, pp. 1.274-1.281.


Metrics

Search GoogleScholar



Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Section

Articles