Constructing the Islamic state: analysing the interplay between media and policy frames in the aftermath of the November 13^th 2015 Paris attacks

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the imagined threat posed by the Islamic State in the aftermath of the November 13^th Paris attacks and during the build-up to the December 2^nd 2015 House of Commons vote to extend U.K. airstrikes to Syria. Combining Political Communications and International Relations approaches to framing analysis, and focusing on Britain’s three main television news providers (BBC, ITV and Channel 4), it seeks to question (1) how the Islamic State is framed, (2) who shapes those frames, and (3) what consequences arise from adopting certain ways of seeing and speaking over others? The analysis identifies three competing frames (labelled here as the “(Para)Military”, the “Elusive” and the “Extremist” frames), and their main advocates, and shows how, ultimately, U.K. news media tend to support an “elite”-centred understanding of the threat, thus legitimising calls for extending airstrikes into Syria. In so doing, the article provides two contributions to knowledge: first, empirical, by generating substantive new insight into the way the Islamic State was portrayed in the days and weeks following the Paris attacks, and in particular who shapes those portrayals; and, second, conceptual, via its blending of Political Communications and International Relations approaches to framing and their consequences. 

KEYWORDS:

• Framing
• Islamic State
• political possibility
• television
• terrorism
• visual/verbal representation

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Dr Maria Tomlinson for assistance in coding the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 data, alongside attendees at the PSA and CTS 2019 annual conferences for their engagment with the arguments and ideas explored here. In addition, I would also like to thank the three anonymous reviewers who took the time to offer detailed and encouraging feedback on an earlier version of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jared Ahmad

Jared Ahmad is a lecturer in Journalism, Politics and Communication at the University of Sheffield, UK. His work has appeared in journals such asCritical Studies on Terrorism and Media, War and Conflict, and he is the author of the Palgrave Macmillan “New Security Challenges” book The BBC, the War on Terror and the Discursive Construction of Terrorism: Representing ‘Al-Qaeda (2018). In particular, Jared’s research focuses on the shifting nature of contemporary media discourses and representations of “Islamic” terrorism, and the way such portrayals are shaped by the underlying power relations and dynamics of today’s “hybrid” media environment.