The Construction of the Enemy: Representations of Terrorists in the Aftermath of Attack

8/8/2019 The Construction of the Enemy: Representations of Terrorists in the Aftermath of Attack

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The Construction of the Enemy: Representations of Terrorists in the Aftermath of Attack

I. Introduction

The world that American media consumers live in is large, complicated and often unfamiliar.

While the lived experiences of daily life tend to be familiar and routine, the media provides a windowthrough which consumers can observe the lived experiences of others, whether they are fellow

countrymen, global celebrities, or disadvantaged others in faraway lands (Silverstone 2007: 45). In

many respects, this function of the media is useful for people, as it can provide information and

entertainment, as well as a sense of identity or community. It can lead people to share in the excitement

of a sporting event like the World Cup, or to sympathize with people in other lands suffering from a

drought, war or famine. However, the media can also be severely limited in the breadth and depth of its

work. Some of these limits are a consequence of the format (there are only so many column inches or

minutes of airtime), while others are far more complicated and deeply-rooted. These are the bugbears

of bias and partiality which wiggle their way into all of the decisions made by media professionals:

from the choice of words that they use, to the selection and placement of the photographs they print, to

the decision of which stories to carry in the next edition, and which to cut.

As a consequence of these decisions made by journalists and editors, their audiences may

remain unaware or insufficiently informed of any number of subjects. In many or most cases, this may

ultimately have no effect on the lived experience of consumers; although they may remain unaware of

some great triumph or challenge or suffering, their lives continue just the same. However, sometimes

events or actors of those underreported situations make their presence felt in forceful, undeniable ways

that not only materially affect the lived experiences of American media consumers, but catch them

completely by surprise and cause them great distress. At times like these, media consumers look

towards journalists and the news media the ones who failed to warn them of any impending danger,

or who did but they nonetheless failed to heed to provide them with information, with context, with

reason.


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It is in this setting of imperfect information that American media consumers react to reports of

the attacks on American political and economic interests that began occurring in greater frequency in

the mid-1990s. Americans, for the most part, did not know why they were being subjected to attack,

nor who was responsible for the assaults which quickly came to be known as 'terrorism'1

. What theyknew was that American citizens (mostly soldiers, but also members of the diplomatic services as well

as contractors, businesspeople and even tourists) were dying, and American interests and facilities were

being physically assaulted and sometimes destroyed. They also knew that these events were occurring

in unfamiliar places that they knew little about: East Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, the Middle East.

Who were the people responsible for these attacks? Why were they doing this? Americans turned to

their government, but perhaps even more to the media, for the answers.

The role of the media, then, becomes paramount to the interpretation of events by those

subjected to attack, to the explanation of the circumstances leading to this point and, crucially, to the

depiction and characterization of the perpetrators. In the immediate aftermath of an attack, the media

plays a crucial role in informing its audience about events fulfilling its journalistic responsibility and

providing the who, what, where, when and how of events. However, in its undertaking of these

responsibilities, journalists tread a very fine line between informing and prejudicing its audience. And

the perpetrators themselves, by the means they choose to accomplish their goals which, in at least

some cases, is to bring attention to a perceived injustice perpetrated by the United States do little to

create conditions that would welcome an informed discussion or negotiation over their grievance. Far

from bringing to light a perhaps legitimate complaint, acts of terrorism instead create yet greater

oppositions and further obscure the issues over which these events occur. Instead of building bridges,

these acts burn them. Instead of fostering greater mutual understanding and sympathy, they breed

hatred and distrust. Instead of helping people of different groups recognize that which they all share,

1 There is a large and lively debate that exists concerning the language of the American War on Terror, to which I intendto contribute my most modest piece. However, I am most interested in evaluating and analyzing the use of language bythe print media, and with due respect to those who deplore its employment (see, for instance, Karim 2002), I will use theterms terrorist and terrorism in this essay, if only for convenience sake.


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they rather solidify in the minds of those who are attacked a sense of what separates them, reinforcing

counterproductive dichotomies of Us versus Them, Justice versus Tyranny, Good versus Evil.

In the context of this troubling situation, then, is there any solution? The actions of terrorists are

destructive and despicable, but they are also desperate, a resorting to violence in the absence of any progress by other means. This of course does not excuse or justify their actions I do not, by any

means, intend to suggest that - but it does illuminate an important fact of terrorist attacks that is often

overlooked: there is a motivation behind them, and it is not always so irrational as some may say. This

is the 'Why' that is notably absent from the list of journalistic responsibilities above, and also from the

vast majority of coverage of terrorist attacks (Zelizer and Allan 2002:11), which is so important to

properly and fully inform media consumers. To the degree that we can accept that people who resort to

terrorism may in some cases have legitimate grievances, why is it that American media consumers are

unaware of those grievances? And what role does the media, and its characterization of terrorists or

terrorist groups in the moment when the media spotlight is peering most brightly at them in the

immediate aftermath of an attack play in the depiction or representation of terrorists and their

motives?

II. The Study

In this study, I intend to examine and analyze the initial response and reporting of the American

print media to acts that have come to be known as terrorist attacks organized and/or orchestrated by

Osama bin Laden, the reputed financier, iconic leader and so-called 'mastermind' of al-Qaida, the

militant Islamic terror organization (9/11 Report 2004: 56). To focus the study, and to examine the way

that news reports even from the very beginning confront choices, make decisions and cast

judgments in their reporting and coverage, I will look at newspaper reports from the day following the

attacks. These articles, which are in all cases the first report of the events in their publication, are not

breaking news. In the current media system, first reports would have come from wire services and 24-


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hour television news networks or radio dispatches. In this case, the newspaper articles serve less to

inform their readers of the occurrence of events (although certainly there will sometimes be readers

who were unaware of them), and more to contextualize and frame them (Zelizer and Allan 2002: 7).

This study is concerned with evaluating how these first reports describe events, ascribe labels to the perpetrators and name presumed or positively identified responsible parties. This evaluation will be in

the service of answering this question: do initial reports of incidents of terrorism in the American print

media, through the use of key words and emotional triggers, play a principal role in creating those

dichotomies of attacked and attacker, of us and them?

To approach the answer to this question I have conducted a content analysis on articles from

four American print news sources: the New York Times , the Atlanta Journal-Constitution , the Seattle

Post-Intelligencer and the Associated Press . A content analysis was selected because it provides a

repeatable, quantifiable means for observing whether trends or practices can be detected in a body of

texts (Gunter 2000: 60). While content analysis is not always the ideal form of analysis for texts such

as newspaper articles, which can be subject to different interpretations by different readers, due to the

narrowness of the study and the parameters of the analysis (identifying the presence or absence or

specific words, for instance) I believe that it is suitable in this case. Naturally, the volume of articles

printed by even just the four news sources named on terror attacks is enormous, and so further efforts

were necessary to narrow the focus in order to extract valuable results from the analysis.

For the purposes of this study, I examined front-page stories from the first issue following

terrorist attacks against American interests in each of the daily newspapers, and the first 24 hours of

coverage in the case of the newswire. The terrorist attacks in question are the 1998 attacks on American

embassies in East Africa, the 2000 attack of the USS Cole warship in Yemen and the 2001 attacks on

the World Trade Center and Pentagon in the United States of America. In my analysis I will examine

the choices made by the news organizations in the depiction and/or identification of the perpetrators in

their coverage of events.


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The publications chosen were selected because they represent a cross-section of mainstream

print and newswire news sources in the United States. The New York Times , sometimes referred to as

America's newspaper of record, is a nationally distributed newspaper with a circulation of over one

million copies daily (Saba 2008). It plays a major role in framing and developing the nationaldiscussion on any number of issues and events, and has traditionally since the 20 th century devoted

considerable resources to foreign news reporting. As such, it is well suited to be a part of this study

despite the presence of some newspapers with higher circulations such as USA Today .

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is a respected regional newspaper with a daily circulation of

over 300,000 (ibid). It was chosen both because of its size as well as its geographic location in the

American South. Because reports of acts of terrorism are carried in newspapers across the nation, and

the consequences of their occurrence can be felt far beyond the immediate location of the attack, the

study would benefit from a variety of sources that would allow me to analyze coverage from various

regions of the country, and the AJC is the largest daily newspaper in the South.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is a medium-sized regional newspaper with a circulation of just

over 125,000 (Pryne 2007). It was selected partly because of its regional location in the Pacific

Northwest as well as its size, which represents another segment of the American newspaper market.

The Associated Press (AP), a newswire service based in New York City but with bureaus in 97

countries, has 1,700 newspaper subscribers in the United States (AP 2007). The AP describes itself as

the largest and oldest news organization in the world, serving as a source of news, photos, graphics,

audio and video, and its reporters provide frequently updated reports to newspapers around the globe

who reprint them. The AP was chosen for the study because it is an important element of the American

print media, with many smaller (as well as larger) newspapers relying on it to provide international

news coverage that they do not have the funds to supply on their own.

The coding frame (see Appendix A) will be applied to all articles and will seek to identify

descriptive elements of the stories (publication title, type and length of article) as well as investigative


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elements (the presence and frequency of the word 'terror' or 'terrorism', 'Osama bin Laden', 'suicide

bombing', names of terrorist organizations suspected or identified as being responsible for the attacks

and names of countries mentioned in relation to the attacks). In order to gauge the development of

dichotomies at the heart of this study, the number and tone of direct quotations from official sourcessuch as the President and his secretaries, generals and advisors were also tabulated. A presentation and

analysis of the findings can be found in section IV.

III. Theoretical Framework

There is ample literature on the representation of terror in America after September 11 th (see, for

example, Merskin 2005 and Kellner 2007), in which it is argued that political leaders in Washington

D.C. and mass media outlets throughout the country have demonized and stereotyped Arabs and

Muslims as terrorists (Merskin 2005: 121). Through the use of suggestive language like 'evil-doers' to

describe terrorists, as President Bush did shortly after September 11 th (Perez-Rivas 2001), the

government and the news media who carry their message, collaborate (willingly or otherwise) in

dehumaniz[ing] the 'other' as part of the construction of an enemy image in the popular imagination

(Merskin 2005: 123). In this way the consciousnesses of media consumers who are receiving these

messages are informed by them, and their frameworks for perceiving the world beyond their lived

realities - those that are provided by the media that they consume - begin to adopt these messages.

But what about in the era before September 11 th, the day that, according to Vice President Dick

Cheney changed everything (NBC News 2003)? Were representations of terrorism different in that

time, or did they tend to follow the same trends of demonization and stereotyping? Inconveniently, this

can vary, and in no small part this is due to the ambivalent nature of the American press' relationship

with the federal government (Hallin 1989: 7). The American press has, over the years and especially

since Watergate in 1972 prided itself on its watchdog role to check government power and reveal

abuses. This tradition continues to the present, even in the context of the War on Terrorism, for


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instance in the decision of the New York Times to publish a story revealing the Bush administration's

approval of a program to tap telephone conversations of suspected terrorists without judicial warrants

(Risen and Lichtblau 2005). However, due to a combination of factors including both a preference

within the trade to prefer official sources, as well as market-based competition for scoops and bigstories, government officials have a relatively easy time getting their comments into the media,

particularly when they are statements made by high profile figures such as the President or Secretary of

State (Hallin 1989: 71). With access to this platform, it is inevitable that the political and/or ideological

campaigns of the ruling administration will be carried out through the press to the audience.

Daniel Hallin, in his study of American media coverage of the Vietnam war, identified three

regions of press coverage that are informed by varying formula's of journalistic standards (Hallin1989:

116). The sphere of legitimate controversy, Hallin argues, is the area that journalists most often inhabit,

one in which they are free to, for the most part, pursue their understanding of objectivity, or at least

impartiality, by presenting both sides of a legitimate issue. Beside this sphere lies the sphere of

consensus, which Hallin describes as being an area containing uncontroversial social objects a

journalist need not find an expert to declare that baseball is the national pastime - even if in other

circumstances (or other spheres) a journalist would be in breach of one of the basic precepts of his

craft, the attribution of statements of fact, if he failed to provide a quote from a recognized authority

saying so. In a sense the third sphere, the sphere of deviance, is similar to the sphere of consensus, in

that it is an area that does not expect the journalist to act as an impartial or objective observer. The

sphere of deviance contains those subjects that the political mainstream of the society reject as

unworthy of being heard (Hallin 1989: 117). In the context of the Vietnam War, about which Hallin

was writing, the unworthy voices were the communists. In the present War on Terror, it appears that

the unworthy voices belong to the terrorists or those who sympathize with their objectives.

Part of the difficulty stems from the nature of terrorism and the status of journalists as subjects

with multiple identities. While they are ostensibly working from a position outside of nationality


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indeed discussions of cosmopolitanism have identified foreign correspondents and other journalists as

charter members of their post-national crowd (Hannerz, quoted in Rantanen 2007: 22) journalists

covering the War on Terror beat in the post-9/11 world have found that their nationality is very much a

reality, and that they can become victims of terror in the same way that other Americans have (Zelizer and Allan 2002: 1).

Roger Silverstone has confronted this contradiction between operating in the sphere of deviance

while simultaneously asking the self-conscious (or perhaps nave) Western question: why do they hate

us? To do so, he employs the concept of proper distance, which he defines as referring to the

importance of understanding the more or less precise degree of proximity required in our mediated

inter-relationships if we are to create and sustain a sense of the other sufficient not just for reciprocity

but for a duty of care, obligation and responsibility, as well as understanding (Silverstone 2007: 47).

As he regretfully notes, it is difficult for the media to settle on the proper distance, particularly when

they are operating in the self-interested spheres of deviance or consensus. The notion of the media

relating the other (in this case, the Islamic extremist or terrorist) to their audience by embedding itself

in a military unit or via stereotypical depictions of exotica lack the proper distance; they are too close

for comfort. Conversely, the extreme representation of Muslims or Arabs or other unfamiliar others as

terrorist villains, monsters beyond the pale of humanity similarly fails to reach that sense of reciprocity

and understanding; it is too far to see the truth. Proper distance, Silverstone argues, requires a two-

pronged effort to reach understanding, both from the producers and consumers of media, through

genuine interest to appreciate both the things that make us like them, as well as those that distinguish us

from each other (ibid). The mediapolis Silverstone's space of appearance where identity and

difference are represented and understood - extends to, and includes, both those who are represented

on screen and page, as well as those whose judgments in life increasingly depend on that

representation (Silverstone 2007: 48).

So the question becomes one of whether the zone of legitimate controversy can be enlarged to


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move beyond its traditional bounds and attain a proper distance to balance a desire to understand and

appreciate the other with its tendency to look inward and pull back, drawing the contrasts with others in

sharp relief, focusing on the differences that distinguish us and them rather than the common qualities

that unite us all. In this effort, as Silverstone argues, there are responsibilities on all sides; and it shouldnot be forgotten that there is demonization and rejection on all sides.

IV. Presentation of Results and Discussion

Due to the nature of the sample of news reports, in which there were 43 articles, some of the

descriptive attributes of the articles were quite similar across publications particularly the

newspapers. Because I was looking at front page stories, which tend to be the longest in a given edition

of a newspaper, the average length of all of the articles was just under 1,000 words (937.49). This

figure is more interesting when you consider that the average of the AP stories was significantly lower

(671). Lengthy feature stories like these tend to contain more room for comment and analysis on the

part of officials and experts that the journalist contacts to provide context. In the case of the sample, 19

of the stories (44% of the total) contained more than five quotations, with over 80% of articles

containing at least one quotation from officials.

These quotations are crucial to the construction of the terrorist enemy, and while efforts to

classify quotes as either emotional or informative delivered disappoint results, it is noteworthy the

extent to which quotes from the chief executive were always unambiguous. For instance, in the case of

the East Africa bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, statements made by President Clinton that were

carried in each of the publications read: These acts of terrorism are abhorrent. They are inhuman. We

will use all the means at our disposal to bring those responsible to justice, no matter what or how long

it takes (Gedda 1998). In the case of the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, Clinton said: If, as it now

appears, this was an act of terrorism, it was a despicable and cowardly act (Deans 2000). On

September 11 th President George W. Bush said in a televised address to the nation: These acts of mass


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murder were intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat, but they have failed ... The search is

under way for those who are behind these evil acts (Schmemann 2001).

Certainly it can be said that these were meant to be reassuring messages to the American

people, and the resolve in the statements to pursue those behind the acts casts attention down the road,to substantive actions that the government will be taking in the future. But nevertheless, the choice of

language used to describe the attacks 'inhuman', 'despicable and cowardly', 'evil' act in a very

specific way to distance Americans the readers from the terrorists, and by extension the unfamiliar

others that they are associated with by their identity as Arabs and Muslims (Merskin 2005: 129).

Indeed, it is hard to cast a more direct dichotomy between the American people and those who attacked

them than to explicitly and emphatically place the terrorists beyond the pale, describing them as

'inhuman' and 'evil'.

The presence and prevalence of other words also provide revealing information. In more than

90% of the sample, the word 'terrorism' or a variant thereof was used with the word appearing more

than once in more than 80% of the articles. To some degree it may not be too surprising that the word

terror appears in articles reporting terrorist attacks. However, it is precisely this introduction of the

terminology that is instructive about these articles. By describing the acts as terrorism, they become

acts of terrorism no longer a contested issue of interpretation but a statement of fact by the institution

of journalism. It is one thing for the president, or the victims, or ordinary citizens to determine that

explosions were planned acts of violence in the pursuit of political goals, but it is another for the media,

the central tool for the construction of meaning (Silverstone 2007: 109) to immediately and deliberately

label them as such. This action sets a baseline, an area of agreement from which all the aforementioned

actors can distribute themselves across the continuum from war hawks to peaceniks, from conspiracy

theorists to armchair generals. Having moved the discussion into the realm of terrorism, a range of

options and plans are unlocked that may otherwise have been out of bounds for instance the pledge to

bring terrorists to justice, as President Clinton said, 'no matter what or how long it takes.'


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Now that we have established that these were acts of terrorism, what are we told about the

terrorists themselves? In the sample, slightly more than half (52%) of the articles mention a man named

Osama bin Laden, with about 40% of them mentioning his name more than once. Bin Laden was

prominently mentioned in many articles regarding the East Africa bombings, often including referencesto his having issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, to kill Americans earlier that year. Significantly as well

for the East Africa story was the fact that bin Laden had recently been ejected from Sudan, which

borders Kenya.

It should be noted that in several cases the articles that named Osama bin Laden also contained

quotes from official sources warning readers not to jump to conclusions regarding the responsibility of

bin Laden in the East Africa embassy bombings and the USS Cole attack. This was prudent advice,

particularly in the context of these initial reports which were filed within 24 hours of the events,

however ultimately the attacks were attributed to him in the following days and weeks 2. Even more

interesting, however, was the relationship between the frequency of use of the word terrorism and the

naming of Osama bin Laden in articles. In stories where the words related to terrorism were not used,

or were used only once (which constituted a combined 16.3% of the sample), there were no references

to bin Laden. In cases where those words related to terrorism were used more than once, bin Laden's

name turned up in 65% of those articles. This created a strong relationship between these acts and

terrorism, and terrorism and bin Laden in the minds of readers, who were confronted with his name

only in articles that juxtaposed this new character with terror.

Considering the aforementioned importance that journalism ascribes to expert opinion and

analysis, it is significant to note that articles that contain more quotes from official sources also have

more references to terrorism. In some cases this is because the officials themselves are frequently using

the word, further impressing both the notion of terrorism and the authority of the officials office onto

2 Osama bin Laden was indicted later in 1998 in a United States federal court for his involvement in the bombing of theEast African embassies, and was named as a co-conspirator in an indictment against Fahd Al-Quso and JamalMohammad Ahmad Ali Al-Badawi, two Yemenis who were charged with organizing the attack on the USS Cole.


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the minds of readers. In 20 articles (nearly half of the total), there were both more than one reference to

terrorism and more than one, but less than five, officials quoted. In 16 of the articles (about one third of

the total), there were both more than five references to terror and more than five officials quoted.

Combined, these two categories account for over 80% of all of the articles including multiplereferences to terror, often by government officials who are providing context to explain what has

happened and why.

The data from the sample shows that the contents of print media reports in the immediate

aftermath of terrorist attacks draw relationships between key emotive words like 'terror' or 'terrorism'

with more extensive commentary by authority figures and references to the purported terrorist leader

Osama bin Laden. Even in the 1998 East Africa embassy bombings, when most Americans had never

heard the name Osama bin Laden, his name was included in almost four-tenths (38%) of the very first

articles to report on the bombings. This introduction in 1998 continues to build in the reporting of the

2000 USS Cole attack where more than half of the articles name him, and by the time we reach the

September 11 th, 2001 attacks bin Laden is named (with increasing certainty) in nearly six-tenths (57%)

of the first reports of the attack.

V. Conclusion

The construction of the enemy serves a practical goal, that of moving the discussion into a field

where a set of options, not normally available, are at hand. The strongest language of all came, not

surprisingly, from those leaders who desired the ability to use those options in pursuance of their

responsibility to protect the nation. But as the analysis showed, the initial reports of the attacks in the

media played their part in putting the language of terrorism into play and setting the framework for a

forceful response 'no matter what it takes.' These first articles provide an interesting angle on existing

discourses on terrorism and Othering in the War on Terror, and illustrate the extent to which the media

was prepared to operate within both the spheres of consensus and deviance.


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The study, and specifically the coding schedule employed tended to work as expected in the

analysis, however certainly some changes could be made to improve it. First of all would be a

reevaluation of the choice of including the AP in the survey. On the one hand, it is undoubtedly a

significant source of news for American across the nation. On the other hand, the AP is a prolific newsorganization, and its publications accounted for fully one half of all of the articles analyzed in the

survey. Either an effort to focus on major feature stories from the AP's early coverage of the attacks, or

simply a removal of it from the sample, might be a way to improve the study in the future.

Additionally, there were some elements of the coding schedule itself that failed to provide

useful information. Notably the data point regarding the nations named in an article turned out to not

function well in the study, as the presence of the name of a nation within an article did not necessarily

mean that it played an essential part of the story (most egregious in this case came from multiple

articles on the USS Cole attack mentioning Italy in the context of Secretary of State Madeline Albright

making comments from there as a result of her being present in the country for a private vacation).

Another more fundamental question that was raised during the completion of the data analysis

was that of intentionality. Of course the goal of the analysis was never to demonstrate that the

American media intentionally set out to demonize Arabs or Muslims by associating them with Osama

bin Laden and terrorists. However, greater attention could have been paid to finding a way to square

assertions of the frequency of terms like 'terrorism' being applied in an article with the context of the

subject of the news article being a report on a terrorist attack. It is not absolutely clear to me now that

because a reporter uses the word terrorism or terrorist in an article about an attack by a political

extremist group on a sovereign nation can necessarily be taken to imply that the journalist is

unconsciously implicitly casting his lot with the administration and acting as a proxy agent for it. On

the other hand, as mentioned in the body of this study, there are very legitimate discussions on the

discourses of language in the War on Terror that merit consideration.

Ultimately, however, the lesson of this study is twofold: that the challenge of finding the proper


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distance in media representations of political violence or terrorism is central to any claim by the media

to be truly providing an impartial or unbiased presentation of events and that while terrorism can in

some cases be seen as a last ditch effort by frustrated actors to bring attention to a grievance that they

feel has been ignored or marginalized (and I maintain that it is quite unfortunate that suggesting that political violence or terrorism has motivations (even if it does not have justification) is such a taboo in

the United States and the West generally), it ultimately is a self-defeating effort to attempt to use the

media as a tool towards that redress; terrorism falls far outside the sphere of legitimate controversy,

even if human rights or the suffering of others does not necessarily. Perhaps future scholarship could

propose a more effective approach to the aggrieved to attract the attention they desire.


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Appendix A: Coding Schedule

A. Article Number 1-43

B. Name of Publication1 New York Times : 2 Atlanta Journal-Constitution : 3 Seattle Post-Intelligencer : 4 AssociatedPress

C. Type of Publication1 National Daily Newspaper : 2 Regional Daily Newspaper : 3 Newswire

D. Length of ArticleRange between 43 and 2729 words

E. Terror Attack Covered1 East Africa Embassy Bombings : 2 USS Cole Bombing : 3 9/11 Attacks

F. Nations Mentioned in the Article1 Only nations directly related : 2 Nations involved and others in the region : 3 Nations involvedand others that have had terrorist attacks : 4 Nations involved, others that have had attacks, and othersin the region : 5 Nations involved and all other nations

G. Instances of the word 'terrorism' or variant in the article1 One mention : 2 Two to four mentions : 3 Five or more mentions : 99 No mention

H. Terrorist organizations named in the article1 One group named as claiming responsibility : 2 One group named as possible suspect : 3 Morethan one group named as possible suspects : 4 One or more groups named, but not as possiblesuspects : 99 No groups named

I. Instances of the name Osama bin laden in the article1 One mention : 2 Two to four mentions : 3 Five or more mentions : 99 No mentions

J. Instances of the word 'suicide bombing' or variant mentioned in the article1 One mention : 2 Two to four mentions : 3 Five or more mentions : 99 No mentions

K. Number of quotes from official sources1 One quote : 2 Two to four quotes : 3 Five or more quotes : 99 No quotes

L. Tone of quotes from official sources1 Explanatory : 2 Emotional : 3 Both explanatory and emotional : 99 None


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Appendix B: Document Sample

TITLE: Special Report: The Embassy Bombings; Suspects: Ad hoc terrorist team; Senders of fatalmessage to America and its allies were organized, well-financed, far from amateurs, experts say.BYLINE: Ron MartzSECTION: NEWS; Pg. 04D

LENGTH: 554 wordsThe bombs that ripped apart U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on Friday, killing dozens and

injuring hundreds, were intended to send a message not only to Americans, but also to their allies,security experts say.

"What they (the terrorists) are saying is: 'Not only can we get the Americans, we can get you,' " saidBob Finke, senior security consultant with IPSA International of Atlanta. But just who sent those deadly messages is still unclear.

Initial speculation is that the two car bombs were well-planned, well-coordinated and well-financedmost likely by Islamic fundamentalists.

Neither Kenya nor Tanzania has a history of terrorist activity. And neither has been known toharbor foreign terrorists because of close ties to the United States.

The State Department's 1997 report on international terrorism does not list any terrorist incidents ineither country.

Car bombs are "a modus operandi that's been used primarily by Islamic terrorists, although car bombs have also been used in Colombia," said Robert Heibel, formerly the FBI's second-in-commandon counter-terrorism issues.

Heibel, now director of the Research/Intelligence Analyst Program at Mercyhurst College in Erie,Pa., said the timing of the two massive blasts, within five minutes of one another, "pretty muchdiscounts amateurs."

Last week, the Egyptian terrorist group Islamic Jihad said it would attack American interests because some of its members were arrested in Albania and turned over to Egyptian authorities.

Islamic Jihad is a successor to the original Jihad that carried out the 1981 assassination of EgyptianPresident Anwar Sadat.

Clark Staten, executive director of the Chicago-based Emergency Response and Research Institute,which monitors major emergency events, including terrorist attacks, said the culprits might actually bean ad hoc team of terrorists pulled together from various groups just for these two bombings.

"That's the pattern that we've seen since the World Trade Center. These groups don't exist beforethe attack or after the attack," said Staten.

The 1996 truck bomb that exploded outside U.S. Air Force barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia,killing 19 Americans, was believed done by a team of terrorists from various radical Islamic groups.

There is speculation among terrorism experts that the Dhahran bombing and the November 1995terrorist attack in Riyadh that killed five American military personnel were financed by a rogue SaudiArabian multimillionaire named Osama bin Laden.

Now hiding in Afghanistan, bin Laden is said to be worth about $ 200 million and is virulently anti-American because of U.S. support for Israel.


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Earlier this year, bin Laden issued a holy ruling, known as a "fatwa," instructing Muslims to "killAmericans everywhere."

Bin Laden, quoted in an Arabic newspaper, said "the ruling to kill the Americans and their allies ---civilian and military --- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which itis possible to do it."

Bin Laden, who has worked closely with the Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim militant groupHezbollah in the past, also has financed terrorist training camps in Sudan, and Staten said it is possiblethat those responsible for the two blasts might have come from one of those camps.

TITLE: THE WARSHIP EXPLOSION: THE OVERVIEW; BLAST KILLS SAILORS ON U.S. SHIPIN YEMENBYLINE: By JOHN F. BURNS with STEVEN LEE MYERSSECTION: Section A; Page 1; Column 6; Foreign Desk LENGTH: 1899 wordsDATELINE: ADEN, Yemen, Friday, Oct. 13

An American Navy destroyer refueling in Yemen was rocked by an enormous explosion onThursday, and President Clinton said it appeared to be a terrorist attack. At least 6 American sailorsdied and 11 others were missing and presumed dead, officials said. Nearly three dozen others wereinjured, some of them severely.

The explosion came from one of several smaller harbor boats helping the destroyer Cole dock at arefueling station in this port, on the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula. Senior Pentagon officialssaid the boat, with at least two men aboard, had been loaded with explosives in what was evidently awell-planned suicide attack.

As dawn broke this morning, the American vessel could be seen from across the harbor, with a black hole in its side and sooty marks running up from the water. Sailors were active on the deck, andthe first American investigators began arriving. The hole in the ship was later covered with a whitetarpaulin.

The harbor area was tense and tightly sealed by army and police units of Yemen, many of them incamouflage. One officer said: "The Americans are our friends. This is bad for Yemen." Mr. Clinton,already grappling with escalating violence in the Middle East, appeared in the Rose Garden at theWhite House Thursday afternoon and somberly vowed to determine who was responsible and holdthem accountable. His remarks raised the possibility of American military retaliation.

"If, as it now appears, this was an act of terrorism, it was a despicable and cowardly act," Mr.Clinton said, only moments after having met with his senior national security advisers.

Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen said in Washington that no one had immediately claimedresponsibility for the attack. He and others in Washington warned against prematurely assigning blameto any group or speculating on the motives for an attack.

Officials said the explosion, which occurred at 12:15 p.m. (5:15 a.m. Eastern time), tore a gapinghole, 20 feet by 40 feet, in the side of the Cole, a guided-missile destroyer based in Norfolk, Va., whichwas carrying a crew of about 300. The blast caused extensive flooding, causing the ship to list slightly.By nightfall Thursday, crew members had managed to control the flooding and keep the ship afloat.


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The blast was devastatingly powerful. Adm. Vern Clark, the chief of naval operations, said that theCole's hull at the point of the blast was designed to withstand 51,000 pounds of pressure per squareinch. Photographs of the Cole showed a charred, bent hole at the waterline.

The officials said they would not know the exact type of explosive used until forensic experts arriveand take samples from the ship's hull.

The United States has been trying to engage Yemen diplomatically, despite its history as a havenfor terrorist groups, in part with port calls like the Cole's. American ships have stopped in Aden adozen times since last year, officials said. Admiral Clark said that efforts to improve ties with Yemenwere "at the heart of the motivation" to use its refueling station.

The Cole, on its way to the Persian Gulf to join a naval battle group involved in operationsregarding Iraq, had just arrived in Aden when the blast occurred. It was scheduled to stay only aboutfour hours, just long enough to refuel before resuming its journey.

While Mr. Clinton and his senior aides stopped short of definitively attributing the explosion toterrorism, senior Pentagon officials said the Cole was attacked in a highly sophisticated operation thatdepended on access to information about its brief visit to Aden. They said evidence indicated that theattack may have been weeks or months in the planning, suggesting that it might not be directly relatedto the roiling tensions in the Middle East.

"It was clearly a pre-planned, premeditated event," one officer said.

Admiral Clark, who appeared at the Pentagon with Mr. Cohen, the Secretary of Defense, said hehad little doubt the explosion was deliberate. "I have no reason to think that this was anything but asenseless act of terrorism," he said.

Attorney General Janet Reno announced that an Federal Bureau of Investigation team of investigators would lead the inquiry. The first agents came from an F.B.I. office in Saudi Arabia, whilea larger group that included explosive experts was leaving from Washington, along with investigatorsfrom the State Department and Pentagon.

Ali Abdullah Saleh, the president of Yemen and a former army general, said there was no evidencelinking the blast to the current fighting in Israel. "Yemen does not have any terrorist elements, andthere is no relationship between this and what is happening in the occupied territories," Mr. Saleh saidin an interview with CNN.

But according to the State Department, several radical Islamic organizations operate in Yemen.They include the Palestinian group known as Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the EgyptianIslamic Jihad and cells linked to Osama bin Laden, the exiled Saudi whom American officials blamedfor the bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on Aug. 7, 1998. The United Statesretaliated for those bombings 13 days later with missile strikes in Afghanistan and the Sudan.

In recent weeks, President Saddam Hussein of Iraq has also intensified his threats against the

United States, Israel and Arab states like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Even as the Cole was struck,American intelligence officials had detected movement by one of Iraq's Republican Guard divisionswest of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, though Mr. Cohen suggested the timing could be coincidental.

The explosion came at the height of the American presidential race. Along with the violence inIsrael, it immediately eclipsed the campaign debate. Vice President Al Gore returned to Washingtonfrom the campaign trail to participate in meetings at the White House about both crises. His Republicanrival, Gov. George W. Bush of Texas, called for a vigorous, united approach on both fronts.

"Let's hope we can gather enough intelligence to figure out who did the act and take the necessary


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action," Mr. Bush said of the supposed attack. "There must be a consequence."

The incident was a jolt to an administration already scrambling to save the Middle East peace process, and its effects rippled around Washington and the world.

President Clinton, who returned early to the White House from a visit to Chappaqua, N.Y., wherehe celebrated his 25th wedding anniversary, ordered all American ships in the Persian Gulf region to

pull out of port and head to the relative safety of open waters.

The Pentagon announced that it had heightened the state of alert for American forces around theworld, including at American bases, while the State Department reiterated a worldwide advisorywarning Americans living or traveling overseas to be watchful of potential terrorist attacks.

The Cole, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, is one of the Navy's most sophisticated warships,equipped with advanced radar systems and high-speed missiles and cannons designed to protect itself and American battle groups against air and missile attacks.

Despite its technological sophistication, however, the ship was essentially helpless to prevent anattack of the type presumed to have happened -- the maritime equivalent of a truck packed withexplosives pulling up to a building.

The Cole's crew was already on a heightened state of alert because of the threat of terrorism in theregion generally, but the boat that exploded did not raise suspicions since it was part of a flotillahelping the Cole moor at a refueling pier in the port. "It has a legitimate purpose for being in the area,"the senior official said of the ship.

According to Pentagon officials, an Army major who serves as deputy defense attache at theAmerican Embassy in Yemen and was observing the refueling operation reported that the boat hadalready tied up one of the Cole's mooring lines to the refueling station in the harbor. The officials saidthe boat then returned, evidently to retrieve another line, when it exploded.

One Pentagon official said the two men in the boat appeared to stand moments before the blast, butMr. Cohen and Admiral Clark declined to speculate on their actions before the blast or their motives.

Both evidently died in the explosion, while their boat was destroyed. It was not clear if others wereaboard.

The Cole's vulnerability to such an apparent attack immediately raised questions about the securitymeasures the ship had taken. Admiral Clark said that the ship's captain would not have necessarily haveexpected a routine mooring operation to pose a threat.

"Let me just say that the ability to deal with this kind of attack is limited by this circumstance,"Admiral Clark said.

While the visit was scheduled to be brief, Navy officials had notified the government of Yemenseveral days in advance. While security personnel were on deck at the time, a Pentagon official said thecrew had no warning before the explosion, which had such force that it buckled the ship's decks, badlydamaging the engine room in the middle of the ship, as well as an adjoining mess and living quarters.Most of those killed were in those areas, the official said.

Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright said she had spoken with the president of Yemen, AliAbdullah Saleh, who had offered to help with the treatment of those injured and with the investigation.

If confirmed as a terrorist attack, it would be the worst against American military forces since the bombing of an Air Force barracks in Saudi Arabia killed 19 airmen in 1996. It was the worst attack onan American Navy ship since an Iraqi missile struck the Stark, a guided-missile frigate in the PersianGulf in 1987, killing 37 sailors.


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The Navy dispatched two other ships from the region to Yemen to help with the effort to secure andultimately repair the Cole. They are expected to arrive today. Mr. Cohen said British and French shipswere also headed to Aden to help.

The roughly three dozen injured by the explosion were being treated at a hospital in Aden but wereexpected to be evacuated soon to American military hospitals, possibly in Germany. A medical teamwas flying from the island nation of Bahrain, headquarters of the Navy's 5th Fleet in the Persian Gulf.

At the Cole's home port in Norfolk, the Navy set up a center for family members to gather as grimnews of deaths and injuries came in.

Mr. Clinton said the explosion aboard the Cole would not scuttle American diplomatic efforts in theMiddle East, if indeed that was the motive for the apparent attack. "If their intention was to deter usfrom our mission of promoting peace and security in the Middle East, they will fail utterly," he said.

At the Pentagon, Mr. Cohen echoed those remarks and warned that the United States would not rest"until we have tracked down those who are responsible for this vicious and cowardly act."

"In the wake of this tragedy," he continued. "I want to be very clear about one point. We willcontinue to protect our national interests around the world, in the Middle East and elsewhere. No one

should doubt our resolve to remain a force for peace and for stability, and no one should assume thatthey can force us to retreat. No one should assume they can attack us with impunity."

TITLE: U.S. Suspects bin Laden in AttacksBYLINE: KATHY GANNON; Associated Press Writer SECTION: DOMESTIC NEWSLENGTH: 851 wordsDATELINE: KABUL, Afghanistan

Highly coordinated and unprecedented in scale, Tuesday's attacks in the United States called tomind the man suspected of orchestrating some of the world's worst terrorist acts: Osama bin Laden,U.S. officials said.

No one has claimed responsibility for Tuesday's attacks, and the Afghan government that plays hostto bin Laden rejected speculation he was involved. One expert cautioned against assuming bin Ladencould pull off such a complex operation.

But Bush administration officials and other experts said the millionaire Saudi exile was their topsuspect.

"This apparently was well-planned over a number of years, planned by real pros and experts," Sen.Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said in Washington after speaking with FBI and intelligence officials. "Their

belief is, at least initially, that this looks like Osama bin Laden's signature."One administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said authorities had received a fax

during the morning from unknown individuals representing themselves as being part of bin Laden'sgroup.

A London-based Arab journalist said Tuesday that bin Laden's followers warned his newspaper bytelephone three weeks ago of a major attack.

"They said it would be a huge and unprecedented attack but they did not specify," said Abdel-BariAtwan, editor of the Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper.


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The callers had made similar threats previously "but this time it seems his people were accurate andmeant every word they said," he said in London.

But the Taliban, Afghanistan's ruling Islamic militia, said bin Laden lacks the resources for such anoperation.

"We have tried our best in the past - and we are willing in the future - to assure the United States inany kind of way we can that Osama is not involved in these kinds of activities," Taliban ForeignMinister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil said in Kabul.

Anthony Cordesman, a terrorism expert from the Washington-based Center for Strategic andInternational Studies, warned against assuming bin Laden is to blame.

"There is a level of sophistication and coordination that no counterterrorism expert had ever previously anticipated, and we don't have a group that we can immediately identify that has this kind of capability," he said.

The United States has called bin Laden the architect of some of the worst acts of terrorism againstAmericans: the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies inAfrica and last year's bombing of the USS Cole.

The FBI has a $5 million bounty on bin Laden's head. The State Department calls him "one of themost significant sponsors of Islamic extremist activities in the world today."

Stripped of his Saudi citizenship, bin Laden has been hiding for five years in Afghanistan under Taliban protection.

He has repeatedly called on Muslims worldwide to join in a jihad, or holy war, and has declaredwar on the United States in religious edicts faxed to the outside world. All U.S. citizens are legitimatetargets, he has said.

"I'm fighting so I can die a martyr and go to heaven to meet God. Our fight now is against theAmericans," bin Laden was once quoted by Al-Quds Al-Arabi as saying.

Last spring, bin Laden instructed activists attending a Muslim convention in Afghanistan to preparethe next generation for the jihad.

"Issue a call to the young generation to get ready for the holy war and to prepare for that inAfghanistan because jihad in this time of crisis for Muslims is an obligation of all Muslims," he said ina statement read at the May gathering. Bin Laden's group met earlier this year with the Palestiniangroup Islamic Jihad and the Egyptian al-Gamma al-Islamiya "to put in place a common strategy againstthe United States," Middle East expert Antoine Sfeir noted Tuesday, citing European intelligencesources.

But if he is involved, bin Laden and his followers probably acted alone Tuesday, Sfeir said in Paris.

"Bin Laden is the one with the financial means and the human needs and the logistic means," Sfeir

said.Bin Laden came to prominence fighting alongside the U.S.-backed Afghan mujahedeen - holy

warriors - in their war against Soviet troops in the 1980s.

But former friends and followers say he turned against the United States during the Gulf War, and began campaigning against America from Saudi Arabia.

Disowned by his family, bin Laden - believed to be in his 40s - is said to have moved in early 1996with a band of followers to Afghanistan, where is allegedly operates several training camps.


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Earlier this summer, a federal jury in New York convicted four alleged bin Laden associates inconnection with the 1998 embassy bombings in Africa, also a coordinated attack.

In retaliation for the bombings, President Clinton ordered missile strikes on bin Laden's suspectedhide-out, and Washington and the United Nations have exerted diplomacy and sanctions to getAfghanistan to hand him over.

It refuses, saying the United States has no evidence linking bin Laden to terrorism.

The Construction of the Enemy: Representations of Terrorists in the Aftermath of Attack

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