American Elites Discourse And War On Terrorism Campaign: Framing Approach

This study attempts to analyze how American elites groups ideologically framed events of terrorists attack on September 11,2001 and the completion of the first year of the War on Terrorism(WOT) campaign.It tries to understand how the different groups of American elites(e.g., government officials,corporate officials,media officials etc.) effectively limited or expanded options for state action in response to the terrorists attack on 9/11 by framing the events.This dissertation will building on the framing perspective of the social movements' literature.This study considers how different elite group shapes their opinion to mobilize collective action to serve their interests,which draw upon a collective identity and shared racial, gender and class ideologies of 'America',its enemies,and its role in the changing world.The methodologies that have been employed to this study will be Qualitative Content Analysis and Critical Framing Analysis which theoretically purposive sample of major speeches of George W.Bush(GWB) and New York Times(NYT) and the Washington Post(WP) editorials,staff commentaries and guest Op-Eds.Similarities and differences in diagnostic,prognostic and motivational framing between sources and categories of elites will be identified and sociologically explained. There's also the amount of support of each media document gave for the ideological assumptions of the War on Terror as represented in speeches of George W.Bush will be measured for this study.The NYT editorial board was farther ahead of its readership in support of the War on Terror than the WP,but overall the WP was more supportive than the NYT.Media elites from both newspapers were more supportive of the WOT than government officials.Almost all of groups of elites were found for the policy of preemptive strikes and specifically regime change in Iraq.The role of media was not only translate and circulate elite ideologies of the WOT but to help amplify the framing of them as well.What I have found from the data while employing Critical Framing Analysis to examine constructions of race;class and economics;and gender in elite discourse,was an ideology that can be described as an imperialist ideology.American elites,particularly media elites not only try to delegitimize 'terrorists' but those who criticized the 'inevitability' of the Americanization of global economy and culture.