Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

This study looks at news coverage of terrorist attacks on Twitter over a five-year period. It examines Twitter accounts of three US and three UK elite newspapers. This study found that terrorist attacks in core countries received more attention than attacks in non-core countries. Also, this study revealed that just three terrorist attacks: January and November 2015 Paris attacks and Brussels 2016 bombings, accounted for nearly a half of the overall US and UK tweets examined in this study.

Keywords

International media social media terrorism World Systems Theory

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Alkazemi

Fahmy

Wanta

(2018) The promise to the Arab World: Attributes of US President Obama in Arabic-language tweets. International Communication Gazette 80(2): 119–134.

Barnard A (2015, November 15) Beirut, also the site of deadly attacks, feels forgotten. The New York Times. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/16/world/middleeast/beirut-lebanon-attacks-paris.html (accessed 24 May 2018).

Barthel M, Shearer E, Gottfried J, et al. (2015, July 14) The evolving role of news on Twitter and Facebook. Available at: http://www.journalism.org/2015/07/14/the-evolving-role-of-news-on-twitter-and-facebook/ (accessed 24 May 2018).

BBC (2017, February 1) Tunisia attack: What happened. Available at: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-33304897/ (accessed 24 May 2018).

Beaujon A (2014, October 28) USA Today, WSJ, NYT top U.S. newspapers by circulation. Available at: http://www.poynter.org/2014/usa-today-wsj-nyt-top-u-s-newspapers-by-circulation/277337/ (accessed 24 May 2018).

Cassa CA, Chunara R, Mandl K, et al. (2013) Twitter as a sentinel in emergency situations: Lessons from the Boston marathon explosions. PLOS Currents Disasters. Available at: http://currents.plos.org/disasters/index.html%3Fp=8687.html (accessed 17 January 2019).

Chang

(1998) All countries not created equal to be news: World system and international communication. Communication Research 25(5): 528–563.

CNN Library (2016, November 30) 2015 Paris terror attacks fast facts. Available at: http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/08/europe/2015-paris-terror-attacks-fast-facts/ (accessed 24 May 2018).

Crenshaw

(2000) The psychology of terrorism: An agenda for the 21st century. Political Psychology 21(2): 405–420.

10.

Dimitrova

Strömbäck

(2005) Mission accomplished? Framing of the Iraq War in the elite newspapers in Sweden and the United States. International Communication Gazette 67(5): 399.

11.

Fahmy

(2010) How could so much produce so little? Foreign affairs reporting in the wake of 9/11. In: Golan

Johnson

Wanta

(eds) International Media in a Global Age, Philadelphia, PA: Routledge, pp. 147–159.

12.

Foster A (2017, August 18) Terror attacks timeline: From Paris and Brussels terror to most recent attacks in Europe. Express. Available at: https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/693421/Terror-attacks-timeline-France-Brussels-Europe-ISIS-killings-Germany-dates-terrorism (accessed 29 October 2018).

13.

Galtung

Ruge

(1965) The structure of foreign news: The presentation of the Congo, Cuba and Cyprus crises in four Norwegian newspapers. Journal of Peace Research 2(1): 64–90.

14.

Gerhards

Schäfer

(2014) International terrorism, domestic coverage? How terrorist attacks are presented in the news of CNN, Al Jazeera, the BBC, and ARD. International Communication Gazette 76(1): 3–26.

15.

Global Terrorism Database (n.d.) Available at: http://start.umd.edu/gtd/ (accessed 24 March 2017).

16.

Golan

(2010) Determinants of International news coverage. In: Golan

Johnson

Wanta

(eds) International Media Communication in a Global Age, New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 125–144.

17.

Golan

Himelboim

(2016) Can World System theory predict news flow on Twitter? The case of government-sponsored broadcasting. Information, Communication & Society 19(8): 1150–1170.

18.

Gottfried J and Shearer E (2016, May) News use across social media platforms 2016. Available at: http://www.journalism.org/2016/05/26/news-use-across-social-media-platforms-2016/ (accessed 24 May 2018).

19.

Graham D (2015, November 16) The empathy gap between Paris and Beirut. The Atlantic. Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/11/paris-beirut-terrorism-empathy-gap/416121/ (accessed 24 May 2018).

20.

Greene

(2017) Defining terrorism: One size fits all? International & Comparative Law Quarterly 66(2): 411–440.

21.

Griffin

(2004) Picturing America's ‘war on terrorism’ in Afghanistan and Iraq: Photographic motifs as news frames. Journalism 5(4): 381–402.

22.

Guidry

Carlyle

LaRose

, et al. (2018) Framing and visual type: Effect on future Zika vaccine uptake intent. Journal of Public Health Research 7(1): 35–42.

23.

Harcup

O'Neill

(2001) What is news? Galtung and Ruge revisited. Journalism Studies 2(2): 261–280.

24.

Hermida

Fletcher

Kurrell

, et al. (2012) Share, like, recommend. Decoding the social media news consumer. Journalism Studies 13(5–6): 815–824.

25.

Himelboim

Chang

McCreery

(2010) International network of foreign news coverage: Old global hierarchies in a new online world. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 87(2): 297–314.

26.

Hoffman

Jengelley

Duncan

, et al. (2010) How does the business of news influence terrorism coverage? Evidence from The Washington Post and USA Today. Terrorism and Political Violence 22(4): 559–580.

27.

Holcomb J, Gross K and Mitchell A (2011) How mainstream media outlets use Twitter. Pew Research Journalism Project. Available at: http://www.journalism.org/2011/11/14/how-mainstream-media-outlets-use-twitter/ (accessed 2 November 2018).

28.

Hollander G (2013, August 29) UK newspapers ranked by total readership (print and online). Available at: http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/uk-newspapers-ranked-total-readership-print-and-online/2/ (accessed 24 May 2018).

29.

Hong

(2012) Online news on Twitter: Newspapers' social media adoption and their online readership. Information Economics and Policy 24(1): 69–74.

30.

Jensen

Neumayer

Rossi

(2018) ‘Brussels will land on its feet like a cat’: Motivations for memefying# Brusselslockdown. Information, Communication & Society 39(8): 1122–1141.

31.

Jetter M (2014) Terrorism and the media. The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). Available at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2505359 (accessed 24 May 2018).

32.

Jeong

Chyi

(2013) Will social media save newspapers? Examining the effectiveness of Facebook and Twitter as news platforms. Journalism Practice 8(1): 1–17.

33.

Kearns EM, Betus A and Lemieux A (2017) Why do some terrorist attacks receive more media attention than others? Available at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2928138 (accessed 24 May 2018).

34.

Kim

Barnett

(1996) The determinants of international news flow: A network analysis. Communication Research 23(3): 323–352.

35.

Kwon

Chadha

Pellizzaro

(2017) Proximity and terrorism news in social media: A construal-level theoretical approach to networked framing of terrorism in Twitter. Mass Communication and Society 20(6): 869–894.

36.

Lee

Agrawal

Rao

(2015) Message diffusion through social network service: The case of rumor and non-rumor related tweets during Boston bombing 2013. Information Systems Frontiers 17(5): 997–1005.

37.

Lizardo

(2008) Defining and theorizing terrorism: A global actor-centered approach. Journal of World-Systems Research 14(2): 91–118.

38.

McPhail

(2010) Global Communication: Theories, Stakeholders, and Trends, 3rd ed. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

39.

Agrawal

Rao

(2013) Community intelligence and social media services: A rumor theoretic analysis of tweets during social crises. MIS Quarterly 37(2): 407–426.

40.

Papacharissi

de Fatima Oliveira

(2008) News frames terrorism: A comparative analysis of frames employed in terrorism coverage in US and UK newspapers. The International Journal of Press/Politics 13(1): 52–74.

41.

Parmelee JH, Roman N, Beasley B, Perkins SC (2019). Gender and generational differences in political reporters' interactivity on Twitter. Journalism Studies 20 (2): 232–247.

42.

Parry

(2010) A visual framing analysis of British press photography during the 2006 Israel–Lebanon conflict. Media, War & Conflict 3(1): 67–85.

43.

Phillips B (2015, November 16) This is why the Paris attacks have gotten more news coverage than other terrorist attacks. The Washington Post. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/11/16/why-have-the-paris-attacks-gotten-more-news-coverage-than-other-terrorist-attacks/?utm_term=.173c00aa3130 (accessed 24 May 2018).

44.

Seo

Ebrahim

(2016) Visual propaganda on Facebook: A comparative analysis of Syrian conflicts. Media, War & Conflict 9(3): 227–251.

45.

Shearlaw M (2015, January 12) Why did the world ignore Boko Haram's Baga attacks? The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/12/-sp-boko-haram-attacks-nigeria-baga-ignored-media (accessed 24 May 2018).

46.

Statista (2017a) Number of Twitter users in the United Kingdom (UK) from 2012 to 2018 (in million users). Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/271350/twitter-users-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/ (accessed 29 October 2018).

47.

Statista (2017b) Number of monthly active Twitter users in the United States from 1st quarter 2010 to 4th quarter 2016 (in millions). Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/274564/monthly-active-twitter-users-in-the-united-states/ (accessed 24 May 2018).

48.

Tufekci

(2017) Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

49.

Tuman

(2010) The struggle to define terrorism. In: Communicating Terror: The Rhetorical Dimensions of Terrorism, Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

50.

U.S. Department of State (n.d.) National Consortium for the study of terrorism and responses to terrorism: Annex of statistical Information. Available at: https://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2015/257526.htm (accessed 24 May 2018).

51.

Wallerstein

(1974) The Modern World System, New York, NY: Academic Press.

52.

Wallerstein

(2011) The Modern World-System I: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century, Berkeley: University of California Press.

53.

Wanta

Golan

(2010) Coverage of foreign elections in the United States: A model of international news flow. In: Golan

Johnson

Wanta

(eds) International Media Communication in a Global Age, New York: Routledge, pp. 109–124.

54.

WashPostPR (2016, January 14) The Washington Post surges to 76 million monthly users. The Washington Post. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/pr/wp/2016/01/14/the-washington-post-surges-to-76-million-monthly-users-2/?utm_term=.d8a1e207659b (accessed 24 May 2018).

55.

Wasike

(2013) Framing news in 140 Characters: How social media editors frame the news and interact with audiences via Twitter. Global Media Journal (Canadian Edition) 6(1): 5–23.

56.

Weimann

(1987) Media events: The case of international terrorism. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 31(1): 21–39.

57.

Weimann

Brosius

(1991) The newsworthiness of international terrorism. Communication Research 18(3): 333–354.

58.

(2003) Homogeneity around the world: Comparing the systematic determinants of international new flow between developed and developing countries. International Communication Gazette 65(1): 9–24.

59.

Zhao WX, Jiang J, Weng J, et al. (2011) Comparing Twitter and traditional media using topic models. In: Advances in information retrieval: 33rd European conference on IR research, ECIR 2011, Dublin, Ireland, 18–21 April 2011. Berlin: Springer Verlag.

Tweeting about terror: A World Systems Theory approach to comparing international newspaper coverage online

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References