Containment, Confrontation, or Constructiveness? News Media’s Responses to Islamic State’s Execution Videos, Professional Ideology, and Metajournalistic Discourse

• In Event: Visual and Immersive Technologies in the News: Potentials and Perils

Abstract

This paper looks into the metajournalistic discourse generated among professional journalists in Flanders, Belgium (i.e. the Northern, Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) by the circulation of graphic imagery of executions and, to a lesser extent, destructions of cultural heritage, produced and actively disseminated by Islamic State. In order to reconstruct this metadiscourse, we conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 11 editors (who self-described as editor-in-chief, photo/video editor-in-chief, or online editor in-chief) holding leading positions at major news organizations in Flanders, Belgium (both broadcast, print, and online). Findings were integrated with those of a qualitative content analysis of a purposive sample of op-eds, columns, commentaries, etc. appearing across different media types and platforms. Located at the intersection of academic perspectives on media and terrorism, professional journalistic identity and journalistic cultures, and photojournalism and graphicness, the present study aims to demonstrate how the case of Islamic State visual propaganda sets off a complex and at times ambiguous negotiation of different considerations and (self-)conceptions, in the process exemplifying journalism relational nature, problematizing the idea of a ‘symbiotic’ relationship between news media and terrorists, and contributing to understanding the workings of journalistic ideology and metajournalism. The paper distinguishes between three positions, described as 'containment', 'confrontation', and 'constructiveness', which are elaborated and connected to journalistic ideology/values, and metajournalistic discursive repertoires identified in earlier research on UGC.

Author

• Jelle Mast, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB)