9/11 Research Papers

Kamla Pande (2009) explored a number of attacks in this research study. However, Pande primarily focused on the attack of the city of Mumbai in India, in November of 2008 (p.5), and the attack on the United States in New York on September 11, 2001 (p. 7). The Mumbai attack occurred on November 26, 2008 and is described as a well-coordinated attack by armed attackers with the use of semi-automatic weapons, grenades and bombs. The attack lasted three days where the attackers opened fire on several businesses and a Jewish cultural center. Over 170 people were killed. In New York, on September 11, 2001, terrorists associated with al-Qaeda, hi-jacked four airplanes, two of which were flown into the World Trade Center. Over 3,000 people were killed during the attack. Pande, then, explored the prevailing research as to the types of media communication frames with regards to reporting terroristic attacks which included “international order” (describing terrorism as organized crime against a global society with a secondary emphasis on religion and politics) and “clash of civilizations” (describing terrorism in the context of hostility between different civilization)(p. 9).

Pande explores news coverage of the attacks using the following media communication frames: internal conflict, where attacks are described as “tribal” warfare, distance from American interests; and war on terror, which borrow from the “clash on civilities” framing where attackers are seen as the common enemy in Islamic fundamentalism. (p. 10).
The key differences between geographical, regional and religious frames is the effect it has on the audience reading or listening to the news story.

A geographical and regional frame coaches the story using distance as a major factor. This would affect whether a specific audience even learns that an attack has occurred since it hasn’t happened in their geographic area. (p. 23). Pande mentions how similar attacks in Madrid and London did not get much press coverage in the United States because it was considered a “regional conflict” “geographically confined to South Asia than something that really threatened the West.” (p. 27). However, due to the link that the media has created between terrorism had Islamic extremism, a lot more news stories were more likely to frame stories using religion. (p.

26).
Nevertheless, any number of techniques were used to report the issues by the media—Pande argues that, in order to get Americans to care, comparisons were made between terroristic attacks in Mumbai and 9/11 in New York City. Newspapers and television programs are more likely to report stories as a war on terror than isolated attacks in different countries by different religious or rebel factions. The way the media frames these incidents impacts how we view attacks. Based on the reporting, someone could see it as a distant conflict overseas that has no effect on how they function on a daily basis. On the other hand, by reporting it as a war on terror that has no boundaries, you are more likely to sympathize with an innocent victim overseas.
Pande concluded that when it came to terroristic attacks, most newspapers used the war on terror framing, than internal conflict, but with an emphasis on providing a historical framing as a longstanding history of conflict that involved religion and politics.