Ewart, Jacqui and Halim Rane. 2013. "Talking about 9/11: The Influence of Media Images on Australian Muslims' and Non-Muslims' Recollections of 9/11." Australian Journal of Communication 40 (1): 137-151. https://newman.richmond.edu/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com%2Fscholarly-journals%2Ftalking-about-9-11-influence-media-images-on%2Fdocview%2F1446431659%2Fse-2%3Faccountid%3D14731.
- This research paper detailed findings from having four focus groups of Australians – 2 Muslim and 2 non-Muslim – talk about the impacts that news media of 9/11 had on their perception of the disaster as well as the perception of identity of themselves and others. The most important findings were that Non-Muslims and Muslims had completely different things to say. Non-Muslims were shocked and expressed emotive statements at the sight of 9/11, and after it happened questioned Islam as a religion and how it’s culture breeds this sort of violence (some had more severe/Islamophobic reactions than others) and how Muslims fit into Australian identity. Muslims, on the other hand, compared the news media’s portrayal of 9/11 to be rather extreme and constantly put in your face horrifying images compared to other disasters that had gone on in Palestine. That is, they thought that the news exacerbated the emotions. 9/11 made Australian Muslims question their identity, and they all felt that their identity was questioned by others, leading them to feel the need to show that they belonged in Australia and were good people via humor and/or displaying high morals and work quality. The source had multiple perspectives, yet had small numbers of participants. The bias presented is from an Australian standpoint, having less sympathy for the disaster than, say, and American. This source is very valuable to my project because it evaluates how media presented and impacted Australians. I was interested with this study and its findings, especially how 9/11 was able to make such a cultural impact on literally the farthest place from where it happened – Australia.
Kuipers, Giselinde. , ""Where was King Kong when we Needed Him?" Public Discourse, Digital Disaster Jokes, and the Functions of Laughter After 9/11," The Journal of American Culture 28, no. 1 (2005): 70-84. https://newman.richmond.edu/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com%2Fscholarly-journals%2Fwhere-was-king-kong-when-we-needed-him-public%2Fdocview%2F200655677%2Fse-2%3Faccountid%3D14731.
- This study looks at how 9/11 has affected American humor in three ways: the suspension of humor directly after 9/11, the call for humor as a means to cope, and the specific jokes that did arise. It is established that jokes following disasters are usually meant to cope with the disaster, often tying in unrelated topics/events to downplay the severity of the disaster. What was observed in the paper was that major comedy outlets (newspaper comics, late night show hosts) suspended their programs for about 10-20 days following 9/11, and upon returning they were very unusually serious and apprehensive to jumping back into normal comedic levels. However, after this period, they all agreed what everyone needed was humor in order to cope with the stress and sadness. On the internet, Americans made pictorial and verbal jokes that were more patriotic and hostile, while Dutch online jokes were mostly generic disaster jokes. Moreover, the internet provided American individuals with a platform to create collage art comedy, usually layering an element of 9/11 with a popular culture reference, and other creative comedic methods to share with others. This source’s strength was its reliance on existing finding about what types of jokes exist and what they are made in response to, with disaster-style jokes being in response to a disaster that helps people make sense of and get over certain jokes. Its weakness was that it was one researcher, the author, who only looked at major comedy outlets and online posts from two countries, the research could’ve been more thorough. This source evaluates comedy as a media, entertainment, through the lenses of news broadcasts, newspapers, and internet posts. Having these different perspectives of media types gives me a vast amount of information I can use about how media affected people’s humor levels and general peace of mind to be able to interact with humor/comedy.
Michael James Wood and Karen M. Douglas, “What about Building 7? A Social Psychological Study of Online Discussion of 9/11 Conspiracy Theories,” Frontiers in Psychology 4 (July 2013), https://doaj.org/article/a092bd26a20947e1a32f1c2b567f6738
- This research paper conducted studies on online comment forums under online news media posts about 9/11. The primary focus of the research is not on 9/11, but the psychology of conspiracists vs. conventionalists (those who reject conspiracies). They found that their hypotheses were correct: conspiracists tend to link one theory to another, try to get people to “wake up”, tailor their arguments differently to different audiences, etc. while conventionalists tend to use less evidence to support themselves, insult conspiracists, and be less involved in these comment sections. The source is a deep study into conspiracists’ minds and makes scientific guesses and mathematical modeling. However, the study is only based on 4 different news articles about 9/11, totaling about 500 comments. Potential biases may arise from preexisting research done on conspiracies. This study is very relevant to my topic because it highlights many times how conspiracists and their theories have grown very popular and easy to spread through the use of the internet. This media’s influence on the topic of 9/11 has made it extremely easy for people to express superstition about the disaster. I found this source very interesting because I have always wanted to learn about the psychology behind conspiracists.
Merola, Linda M. 2011. “Transmitting the Threat: Media Coverage and the Discussion of Terrorism and Civil Liberties since 9/11.” Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 5 (1): 1–19. doi:10.1080/19434472.2011.571531.
- This research is a sample of pre‐ and post‐9/11 (1998-2006) news articles and broadcast transcripts related to civil liberties issues. Professional coders were employed to look for posts that had specific terrorist information, as well as if civil liberties were directly linked to national security concerns, while computer analyses review large numbers of texts and excludes biases. Their findings were that news publications and broadcasts that mentioned threats to civil liberties escalated with 9/11 and peaked in 2003, with more during the years short after 9/11 than around 9/11 itself. Most of the above-average threat articles are those that warn of possible terrorist attacks. The strengths of this article derive from its dual research method – both computer analysis and human coder analysis – and using those combined findings to develop complex arguments. Conversely, the article doesn’t delve deeply into the implications of the increased mentioning of threat and its impact on the American people. This source will help me in my project because it emphasizes that the increase of news media warning Americans about threats to their civil liberties from security increases has serious implications on how Americans act. Specifically, it states that this increased Americans’ anxiety and suspicion over their government. From this research article I have found that news media directly impacts how Americans see their government and country’s culture.
Li, Xigen. “Stages of a Crisis and Media Frames and Functions: U.S. Television Coverage of the 9/11 Incident During the First 24 Hours.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 51, no. 4 (2007): 670–87. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838150701626578.
- This study looks at how television news media portrayed 9/11 within 24 hours of it happening. It explains that media has many functions to deal with a crisis: convey information about the crisis, provide emotional support/release, etc. It also says that there are/were three stages of coverage: first getting accurate information, then making sense of what happened, and third just creating a larger perspective. Moreover, media’s framing of events dictate how the public sees those events. The findings were that the first stage of coverage (8:48-11:00 am) was dominated by descriptive media coverage, the second stage (11:00-3:00 p.m.) had less descriptive coverage and more political and criminal framing, and the third stage (3:00-7:00 p.m.) had rises in economic implications, safety framing, and individual framing. This source’s strengths was a large data set (coverage from the first 24 hours from the 5 major television news outlets) and its inclusion of existing hypotheses about media coverage during crises. It’s weakness was its conclusion of findings, it didn’t extend beyond whether or not the findings proved their hypotheses. Potential biases may derive from proving past conclusions. This source will aid me during my project because it evaluates how media, specifically television, portrayed the story of the disaster. As established, most people flock to major news outlets during crises in order to learn the most about it, and how it is framed by those outlets dictates how people perceive that crisis. Understanding how media framing works in the age of television and rapid networks is the basis of my question. I think this source will be very valuable to my information.
Eissa, Eiman A, Hala A Guta, and Rana S Hassan. “Representations of Arab Women in Hollywood Pre- and Post- 9/11.” Journal of International Women’s Studies 24, no. 5 (2022): 1–20.
- This study compares portrayals of Arab women in popular Hollywood films before and after 9/11. It details how the physical portrayal of Arab women before 9/11 was either very sexualized or a full veil, highlighting the dissonance between the portrayal of them as individuals and their culture – which is not just either or. This notion rejects the cultural diversity of Arabs altogether, and just conveys them as a general enemy and/or “other”. The study looked at 76 characters from 40 popular Hollywood films – a little more post 9/11 movies than pre 9/11. The findings were that after 9/11, films had diversified national origins of Arab women characters, yet they still kept their occupations stereotypically Oriental (magic-like, housewives, stereotypical clothing, sexual slaves, etc.). Furthermore, after 9/11, there’s an increase in Arab female characters playing active roles, with increased roles of being violent as well as increases in being actually good people. The strengths of this study revolve around the number of movies and content that is reviewed, while I believe the weaknesses lie in how little they take from the movies, only basing off of three different characteristics of the characters. This source will prove very useful for my project because film is one media that is very dominant in today’s world, and very much influences peoples’ view on the world. This is especially true for people who do not know much about certain things/different parts of the world. In this case, people who are not well informed about the Middle East may see movies where Arabs are only seen as terrorists, sexual slaves, and magicians and not be able to pull any likeable or civilized qualities about Middle Eastern cultures. Therefore, we can see peoples’ view on Arabs after 9/11 through how popular media portrays them, and in this case, it is rather negative. I can connect with this source and its findings, as a child I was never taught much about the Arab world and its diversity – instead, I could only rely on the negative portrayal that I saw in movies like “The Spy Who Loved Me”, and others. It is important to go past what popular culture has to say/show about things you do not know because popular media like movies frame the world from a fantastical perspective that is in no way relevant to what the real world is really like. Moreover, Movies have a significant negative impact on general public knowledge because it is the most detached form of reality – it doesn’t need to be real or portray true political dynamics.
Powell, Kimberly A. “Framing Islam: An Analysis of U.S. Media Coverage of Terrorism Since 9/11.” Communication Studies 62, no. 1 (2011): 90–112. https://doi.org/10.1080/10510974.2011.533599.
- This study looks as how American Media framed Islam and the eleven terrorist attacks that have occurred since 9/11. These events are framed not under terrorist attacks, but the larger “war on terror”. The mass media’s coverage of terrorist attacks are the catalyst creating a climate of fear among the population, focusing government attention, economic resources, and military resources on fighting a “War on Terror.” Media imagery regarding Islam focuses on terrorist attacks, oil disputes, and war in Islamic countries. The implications of this framing is that Americans are only given negative information. Media framing is constructed from four dimensions of coverage: word choice, script structures, thematic structures, and stylistic choices. Mass media has become thematic, siding with the government and relying on their framework of interpretation of events. Coders looked to understand the themes associated with the 11 attacks and what they were: Naming of the culprits (all one way or another linked them to Islam), descriptors assigned to the agent (related to Al Qaeda, domestic or international), motive for the act (domestic – creating fear, international – death to America), probability of a future threat, and portrayal of the victim(s). This source’s strengths are that it took into account all the major terrorist attacks since 9/11, and its weakness is that it doesn’t exactly differentiate different media, just looking at the blanket statement of “mass media”. Potential biases may derive from the nationality of the researchers. This source will prove useful to me because it dives deep into media framing and how it might influence the American public. Moreover, it directly answers my question – that mass media’s portrayal of 9/11 has affected American culture by irrationally linking Islamic values to terrorism.