Table of Contents
In the present time, the political leadership in America is characterized by hostility and division. President Trump is viewed to be a reactive leader who encourages negative attitudes and conflict through his own social media platforms. Indeed, President Trump takes to Twitter whether he has something positive or negative to say, politically-correct or incorrect. One must consider the effects this emphasis on negativity may have on the media environment, and further, on audiences.
While the current media climate may be dark and conflict-ridden, there is a theory that may combat the over-abundance of war journalism coverage that is so common today. Peace journalism is a relatively new theory that employs very specific framing techniques that may have the power to counteract war-style media. The potential benefits of this framing technique are vast, yet this topic is widely understudied. Research on peace and war journalism in the current media climate may help us to understand the effects of specific framing techniques and audience interpretations and the creation of meaning. When we are not able to experience events or people directly, those meanings are then developed through media (McGoldrick, 2011).
This means that our understanding of things outside our realm of personal experience are created entirely by the portrayal in the media we consume. Therefore, the framing used by journalists can be troublesome and could create false and/or negative beliefs if the majority of news we consume is, indeed, framed in a war journalism style. Unfortunately, this is appears to be the case.
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According to McGoldrick (2011), war journalism is the predominant strain of reporting used by most media today.We must ask if this has always been the case. Has media always leaned toward conflict-oriented journalism? Further, given the current President’s affinity for this style of media, is he perpetuating war journalism styles? The purpose of this study is to evaluate the current political media climate under President Donald Trump. It is hypothesized that his negative attitude and reactive behavior breeds a similar media climate with qualities closely linked to war journalism (WJ).
This research aims to discover if the president is provoking WJ-style media coverage, and, if it is indeed prevalent. Further, the research will evaluate how audiences’ perceptions and emotions are influenced by war and peace journalism (PJ) styles. Framing theory will illuminate the connection between politics and the media, as well as the two journalism styles and audience responses. The following pages will serve as an overview of the “Trump Era,” WJ media effects, and PJ media effects.
The Trump Era
With the lowest presidential approval ratings in history, President Trump is not often viewed as an understanding, sympathetic, or even-keeled person. A Gallup poll found that his approval rating as of April 2018 was just 38 percent — compared to a 53 percent average approval rating for other U.S. presidents (Gallup, 2012). It is hypothesized that Trump’s negative characteristics may be creating a problematic time in America. Referred to as the “Trump Era,” the current time period is illustrated by sadness, fear, anger, and frustration (Clysman, 2017). The Trump Era has also been referred to it as the “era of bad feelings;” others call this the “Trump Effect” (Strauss, 2016).
In relation to the beliefs and language of the president, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Teaching Tolerance project found an increased level of fear and anxiety in students ages K-12th grade, while other students were emboldened by the divisive language they hear in the news and often repeat it (Strauss, 2016). This is just one effect that has formed from the leadership of our current president. With an increase and hostility in the news and an increase in negative feelings, one must consider the correlation between the vast amounts of negative news and leadership that Americans are exposed to daily. President Trump has a tendency for negativity, and those feelings may be perpetuated in the media.
First and foremost, the media continuously reports on statements by President Trump which, often, are negatively-charged. Second, Trump creates an environment of negative media through his own media platform: Twitter.Twitter relays the president’s thoughts and feelings to the public. The American public (and others around the world) look to these messages often as the first, and truest statements from the president. His media accounts demonstrate negative press and a WJ-style of social media. For example, one tweet said, “Sadly, the overwhelming amount of violent crime in our major cities is committed by blacks and Hispanics”. This tweet exemplifies the WJ characteristic ‘us-vs-them.’ Journalists then run stories focused on these messages (and other qualities that fit within the category of war journalism), and this further perpetuates a negative media climate.
Journalist Rick
Durham (2017) of the Beijing Review, stated that “many [reporters] feel they are in a no-win situation: if they repeat untrue White House claims, they are serving as propagandists for the regime. Yet, if they debunk falsehoods or report inconvenient truths, they are effectively calling their president a liar.” This makes for a tumultuous media climate. Understanding the environment in which WJ thrives may be central to the notion that the president (or other political figures) could be influencing WJ-frames in media. Though it has not been definitely proven, there are a few theories that have attempted to find this link. One such framework is Shoemaker and Reese’s ‘hierarchy of influences’ model.
This model finds that there are five contributing pressures that may shape the way media is framed. Among these “pressures” are influences from media ownership, profit, technology, media influences (e.g. political), and ideologies. Because many of these influences favor WJ, they may be creating an environment for such framing to thrive (Hackett, 2006).
War Journalism
When news is created, journalists must take into consideration the preferences of their audiences. Many of them believe that this means the news should focus on action and excitement. The old cliché, “if it bleeds, it leads” is often referenced in regards to journalism. If this statement is true, journalists are placed in a tough position as their job relies on them giving audiences news that they are interested in. However, the assumption that news should follow the motto “if it bleeds, it leads” often means that the news will be compatible with escalation-oriented coverage, or in other words, WJ (McGoldrick, 2011). To define WJ we will look to Galtung’s concepts derived by Shinar (2009) (see appendix 1).
WJ can be defined by the following characteristics: focus is on conflict arena (i.e. zero-sum orientation), conflicts are opaque/secret, takes an us-vs-them outlook, sees ‘them’ as the problem, the dehumanization of ‘them’, reactive in nature (i.e. waiting for conflict before reporting), focus on visible effects of violence, focus is on ‘our’ suffering only, victory-oriented, and conceals peace-initiatives.Quantitative studies have indicated that the proportion of PJ and WJ coverage is directly impacted by length and intensity of wars as well as the language, story type, and news sources. An example of this can be seen in a study that analyzed Western news wire services during the war in Gaza in 2008.
The findings revealed that news wires tended to use WJ framing in their visual coverage (Abdul-Nabi, 2017). Similarly, in the United States (but not just during war), the majority of news tends to use WJ frame (McGoldrick, 2011). This may be troubling as numerous studies have connected the prevalence of WJ to negative effects in audiences. For example, one study found that news utilizing a WJ frame creates feelings of anger, sadness, and disgust in audiences (Unz et al., 2008). Another study found that participants who read WJ news were more receptive to proposals for violent responses to the conflict (McGoldrick & Lynch, 2014). Similarly, another study found that viewers of WJ news tended to identify “culprits” and they were more likely to want action against them (McGoldrick & Lynch, 2014). In other words, people who read WJ-framed news were more likely to seek justice and wish to counter the conflict with violence.
A study by the New England Journal of Medicine found that the side effects anxiety and stress (among other health effects) are on the rise which may be correlated with the steady increase of hostility in the news (Belluz, 2017). However, hostility in the news may reflect culturally shared goals, norms, and values (Unz, Schwab, & Winterhoff-Spurk, 2008). Events that are conveyed by the mass media may not reflect their personal goals, but rather cater to the general population. If cultural interests create demand for hostile media, then it will remain prevalent. Further, it is hypothesized that if the media created by the president embodies these qualities, and is very much a part of the public sphere, then that may also be contributing to culturally-enforced news frames.
Peace Journalism
The concept of peace journalism was pioneered by Norwegian scholar Johan Galtung in the 1970s. He developed the theory as a criticism of “the preference given by mainstream journalism around the world to war, violence, and propaganda, to causes promoted by elites and establishments and to facile and polarized victory/defeat reality constructions” (as cited in Shinar, 2009, p.451). The theory has since developed into a philosophical framework and recommendations for professional techniques. Galtung used an analogy to better describe the dichotomous peace-war journalism divide: WJ is much like sports reporting in that it represents a winner and loser, whereas PJ is more like health reporting in that it goes beyond the battle and disease to include discussion of causes, cures, and prevention (Shinar, 2009).
