Let’s Not Put a Label on It: Right-Wing Extremism in the News

• In Event: Posters I

Abstract

Media portrayals of terrorism have been understudied and this is especially true about portrayals of right-wing terrorism. As a result, this study focuses on answering two questions: “How is right-wing terrorism framed (episodically or thematically)?” and “How is right-wing terrorism portrayed in news media?” A qualitative content analysis was conducted on six cases, four drawn from the U.S. and two from Canada. Framing theory, critical discourse analysis, and grounded theory were used to inform the research method. The results show that the media does not label these cases as terrorism, and that the ideology of the attackers is generally not seen as the motive. Some themes that emerged include: “A killer with supremacist views;” “He’s a person first not a killer;” “The new keyboard warriors;” and “Eventually we have to talk about gun policy.”

Authors

• Vanja Zdjelar, Simon Fraser University

• Garth Davies, Simon Fraser University