Attracting an Audience 101: Framing

When looking for something to write about in my latest entry to this media journal, I noticed that a number of the top headlines feature stories about the death of top al-Qaeda figure Anwar al-Awlaki. I decided to explore this story further, looking at the way it was reported in three different publications: The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and USA Today.

There were a number of similarities among all of these articles: all three could easily be accessed from the publication’s homepage (indicating its position as a top news story for the day), provided the basic facts about the death of Anwar al-Awlaki, and included multimedia (such as photos or video) that presented the reader with further information about the story. But while the articles from The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times were relatively straightforward accounts of al-Awlaki’s death, the article in USA Today offered up a very different prospective. This article, titled “Killings boost Obama’s national security credentials,” quickly moves from informing the reader about the death of a member of al-Qaeda to analyzing the effects that this death will have on the public view of Obama as a leader of national security.

The differences between these articles can, in part, be attributed to framing. In her article “Getting Framed: The Media Shape Reality,” Charlotte Ryan explains that

“a news story results from multiple subjective decisions about whether and how to present happenings to media audiences. Newsmakers engage in a selection process, actively making sense out of an immense quantity of experience, selecting some points as critical, discarding or downplaying others” (54).

Because news stories pass through so many reporters and editors prior to their publication, it’s easy to understand how they can turn out in a variety of different ways.

It’s also possible that framing could occur in a publication’s attempt to stand out from the crowd. Though we like to think that the primary purpose of the press is to educate and inform the public, there’s no denying that journalism is a business. And because the ultimate goal of any newspaper is to make money, news organizations frame their stories in different ways to separate themselves from the competition. This becomes especially true when reporting on something such as the death of al-Qaeda personnel, as this type of event is sure to be spread throughout numerous news sources. USA Today decided to take a route that was different from other publications, perhaps reporting on the effects of this death in an attempt to make their story one worth reading.

Works Cited
Ryan, Charlotte. "Getting Framed: The Media Shape Reality". Prime Time Activism. Boston: South End Press, 1991.