Media framing, proximity and spheres: The media account before and after the august 21, 2013 syrian chemical attack

The conflict in Syria over the past two years came to the forefront of international policy, and media reporting, following the August 21, 2013, chemical attack within the country which left more than 1,400 civilians dead. The United States administration was thrust into a position to respond in some fashion to those attacks. President Barack Obama and some U.S. policy makers called for limited military intervention. Others officials called for non-intervention. Diplomacy ultimately prevailed. How the media framed the conflict before and after the attack is the crux of this research, as media framing can play a role in how conflict is viewed by those in the positions of political authority, and by the public. This study was based in a qualitative approach to content analysis by looking at themes in reporting from The New York Times and USA Today newspapers. The analysis covered the two weeks before and two weeks after the August 21, 2013 chemical attack. Research looked at keywords and phrases in addition to coding newspapers sources. Before the attack, three USA Today articles and 12 New York Times articles met criteria for inclusion in analysis, and after the attack, 31 USA Today articles and 29 The New York Times articles met criteria for inclusion in the study. Findings in this study build upon existing research on framing, in particular Hallin's (1986) work on three distinct journalistic spheres, or modes of reporting, and research on proximity frames. Framing can occur from what Hallin coined as the Sphere of Legitimate Controversy, Sphere of Consensus, and Sphere of Deviance. Additionally, an aspect in how media frame events is to make a connection through proximity, either by the closeness of geography as it relates to the audience, through empathy with subjects; or alternatively by presenting events from a dispassionate, distant standpoint. The analysis here suggests that preceding the attack, the conflict was framed from a proximate (human interest) sphere of consensus frame which assumed non-intervention. In the aftermath of the attack, the elite national press helped paint the picture of the chemical attack as one distant from the U.S. public while concurrently framing and embedding the issue or option of possible military intervention within the Sphere of Legitimate Controversy (objective reporting).