Framing an Alleged Terrorist: How Four Australian News Media Organizations Framed the Dr. Mohamed Haneef Case

Abstract

Stories about alleged terrorism and terrorist activities typically conflate Islam and terrorism, but there are few examples of cases where the news frames used to present these types of stories change over time. This article explores how four key Australian media outlets framed Australia's biggest and to date most costly terrorism investigation, the Dr. Mohamed Haneef case. It tracks the reportage of the story in its first month to determine the types of news frames used and whether they were those typically associated with news stories about alleged terrorism and terrorism-related events. This study found that during the first 10 days, the news frames that typically characterize reportage of these sorts of events dominated, but dramatic changes in the trajectory of the story meant frames rarely associated with this type of reportage were used for the remainder of the period analyzed. Although the news media analyzed in this study were able to draw on alternative frames, they did not seek to reframe their conflation of the alleged suspect's religion with terrorism.