The words that reporters choose to describe violent acts in the Iraq war determine whether readers view and recall such acts as either terrorism or patriotism, says a study by University of British Columbia psychology professor Elizabeth Dunn, and these word choices can influence foreign policy support.
The 2005 study, The War of the Words: How Linguistic Differences in Reporting Shape Perceptions of Terrorism , analyzed a national sample of American newspaper articles that reported on violence in Iraq between July 2003 and January 2004, the period following the U.S.-Iraq war during March 2003. The research paper is published online in the current issue of Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy (ASAP) , an electronic journal sponsored by the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI).
Dunn says content analysis showed how reporters were more likely to use benign words such as forces , strategy and campaign to describe violent actions associated with the United States and its allies. In contrast, words that implied destruction and devious intent, such as attackers , explosion , blast , threat and plot , were more likely to be used to describe violence associated with Iraqi and non-U.S. allies.
“These newspapers are subtly shaping how we perceive acts of terrorism and pushing us to see these in the way that government wants us to,” says Dunn.
“What I think is most interesting is just how powerful the consequences of these subtle differences are, how the enemy of the U.S. can be seen as a perpetrator of terrorism even when it’s not clear that the actions fit the government’s own definition of terrorism.”
Along with the media content analysis, the research looked at perception and memory of violence. Participants were asked to read two versions of the same article. The first contained words such as forces, campaign or strategy, which were typically used in reference to the U.S. and its allies. After reading this version, research participants inferred that the United States or its allies were responsible for the bombing. They also viewed the action as legitimate and necessary.
However, when participants read a second version of the article that used words typically associated with Iraq and non-allies, words such as attackers, explosion, threat or plot , they were more likely to view terrorists as responsible for the violent act. And in some cases, readers would even recall words that were not present in the article.
“It’s somewhat remarkable that these differences in word usage influence whether people falsely remember words like terrorist and suicide bomber ,” says Dunn, adding, “I think ordinary citizens have a very developed framework around terrorism. In the U.S., we have so much knowledge about it, that if you just tap into it, you have this whole rich body that gets triggered with it.”
Interestingly, research findings revealed that subtleties in media wording largely bypass people’s consciously held political attitudes and can influence their views about the violence as patriotism or terrorism regardless of their conservative or liberal leanings.
Dunn says the observed effects of the study are likely to be magnified in real-world contexts where people are exposed over a longer period of time to more information that is probably more extreme.
Admitting that these findings are “not entirely surprising,” Dunn stresses that her goal was not to blame media. “With any war, you see biased discussion of one’s home country versus the enemy.”
What she did want to do, however, was to alert people to how media reporting can influence public support or condemnation for a nation’s international policies.
Dunn wrote the study while teaching psychology at the University of Virginia with co-authors psychology professor Brian Nosek and psychology student Moriah Moore, also from that university.
The four-part study started with content analysis of 62 articles from 12 randomly selected and geographically dispersed US newspapers that included the Chicago Daily Herald, Village Voice, Washington Times and Seattle Times. The second phase of the study asked 85 research participants to read two versions of the same article and report their attitudes toward the violence, whether the act was a legitimate military action, or terrorism. Researchers had created parallel versions of a newspaper article describing an ambiguous act of violence. One version contained words typically used in reference to the U.S. and its allies, while the other version used words typically associated with Iraq and non-allies.
The subsequent stages of the study asked 111 participants to recall whether various words had appeared in the article they had been given to read. Participants who read a version of the article using words typically associated with Iraq and non-allies were more likely to falsely recall words such as suicide bomber and terrorist in the article. Those who were given a version of the article using words typically associated with the U.S. and allies were more likely to falsely recall words such as patriotic and legitimate .
-30-
A copy of the full study is available upon request. Prof. Dunn is available for comments starting Friday, June 24, 2005.
