Television News Images of the Oklahoma City Bombing
and the Fear of Terrorism
Claudette Guzan Artwick, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
University of Hawaii, Department of Journalism
202 Crawford Hall
Honolulu, HI 96822
(808) 956-3780 fax: (808) 956-5396
[log in to unmask]
Submitted to the Visual Communication Division of the
Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications
1996 Convention
A B S T R A C T
This study explores the relationships among visual meaning
construction for the Oklahoma City bombing story, television news exposure, and
fear of terrorism. In line with what cultivation theory predicts, heavier local
television news viewers express a greater fear of terrorism than the lighter
viewers. For lighter viewers, the compelling visual images of the bombing
appear to have a long-term impact on story meaning. Heavier viewers' meanings
instead focus on reaction to those visuals, which is step toward social reality
construction.
Television News Images of the Oklahoma City Bombing and the Fear of
Terrorism
Television News Images of the Oklahoma City Bombing
Television News Images of the Oklahoma City Bombing
and the Fear of Terrorism
and the Fear of Terrorism
Images of men, women, and children--bleeding, in pain, and in shock;
tears of grief on faces of agony; and the "gaping wreck" of the Alfred P. Murrah
Federal Building reached millions of Americans watching the evening news on
April 19, 1995. News photographers who covered the Oklahoma City bombing said
that words could not describe what had happened, that "the pictures really told
the story" (Fryklund, 1995, p. 15). Within 24 hours of the blast an estimated
100 television crews and 50 satellite trucks were on the scene, transmitting
visuals across the nation and around the world. National as well as local news
broadcasts in cities across America told the story to their viewers through
images of the tragedy.
How do visual images of terrorism in television news influence our
perceptions of terrorism? This study addresses the question through a telephone
survey of residents in a mid-sized television market. It explores relationships
among visual meaning of the Oklahoma City bombing story, television news
exposure, and fear of terrorism.
Relevant literature and hypotheses
Cultivation theory lays the foundation for this study with its
assertion that heavier television viewers are more likely than lighter viewers
to perceive the world as it is depicted on television; often, a "mean and
dangerous world" (Gerbner & Gross, 1976; Signorielli, 1990). Studies have
linked general television use to conceptions of social reality, for example,
perceptions of violence (Gerbner & Gross, 1976), sex roles (Gerbner &
Signorielli, 1979; Morgan, 1982; Signorielli, 1989), and many other areas (see
Signorielli & Morgan, 1990). Specific program use has also produced evidence of
a cultivation effect. Most pertinent to the present study is the relation
between television news viewing and fear of crime (McLeod, Daily, Eveland, Guo,
Culver, Kurpius, Moy, Horowitz, and Zhong, 1995; Perse, 1990; O'Keefe &
Reid-Nash, 1987; O'Keefe, 1984; Tamborini, Zillman, & Bryant, 1984). Viewing
local television news, with its saturation of crime news coverage, has a
"...significant impact on the perceived level of crime in the city and one's own
neighborhood, as well as on the belief that city crime is increasing" (McLeod,
et al., 1995, p. 17). It follows from this literature that television news
coverage of terrorism may cultivate fear of terrorism.
Much media coverage of terrorism focuses on international terrorism
(Crelinsten, 1989; Wittebols, 1991), with an overemphasis on hijackings, hostage
taking, and victimization of ordinary citizens (Kelly & Mitchell, 1981; Jenkins,
1981; Delli Carpini & Williams, 1987). Drama and visual appeal (Larson, 1986),
as seen in the Iran hostage crisis, drive the coverage of the these events.
And attention is given to victims and families (Atwater, 1987, 1989), which
allows viewers to identify with them (Wittebols, 1991). In the case of the
Oklahoma City bombing, the focus on internationalism set the stage for some of
the early coverage. "The media and public's quick assumptions this horrific act
of terrorism had Middle East origins quickly channeled the country's grief and
anger into hate, bomb threats, harassing phone calls, and acts of vandalism"
(Deep, 1995, p. 19). Coverage emphasized visual imagery and a focus on victims
and their families (see National Press Photographers, 1995).
Altheide (1985) argues that visuals drive television news coverage.
And what those visuals convey to viewers may be a key component in the
cultivation process--in terms of memory and meaning. Recent studies show that
viewer recall is greater for the more compelling than the less compelling visual
images (author, 1995), and that visuals are remembered better in negative
messages and in stories containing compelling visual images (Lang & Friestad,
1993; Newhagen & Reeves, 1992). If we assume that the visuals people recall are
also those that help them make sense of the world, then the extant research
suggests that compelling images, which include both graphic scenes and those
that convey the human experience through emotion, contribute to people's
conceptions of social reality.
Entman (1992) found visual images in Chicago television newscasts to
depict blacks as threatening. Graber (1991, p. 17) argues that visuals are
"...important stimuli for inference-making," and that their messages lead to
"...new cognitions and feelings." The meanings audiences discern from visual
images may differ according to frequency of television viewing. Heavier news
viewers more often than lighter viewers focus on crime in their meanings of
television crime news visuals. They also construct more abstract meanings than
do the lighter viewers (author, 1995). For example, when shown an image of a
police car parked in front of a brownstone at night, heavier viewers more often
than lighter viewers interpreted the visual as a murder scene, or as indicating
action involving drugs. Hence, as argued by Debord (1983) and Ewen (1988), the
visual image is central to contemporary society, and has taken over from written
texts the role of primary educator (cited in Lutz & Collins, 1993).
Differences between heavier and lighter television news viewers and
their conceptions of social reality underlie the first hypothesis. As previous
studies have shown relationships between local television news viewing and fear
of crime, heavier viewers are expected to express a greater fear of terrorism
than lighter viewers. Separate tests are proposed for television news exposure
and local television news exposure as the literature suggests distinctions
between the two television news genres.
H1a: A positive relationship exists between television news
exposure and fear of terrorism.
H1b: A positive relationship exists between local television
news exposure and fear of terrorism.
Visual processing differences between heavier and lighter television
news viewers underlie the second hypothesis. As studies have shown differences
in visual meaning construction between heavier and lighter viewers, it follows
that visual meaning of the Oklahoma City bombing story should differ between
heavier and lighter television news viewers.
H2a: A significant difference in television news exposure exists
between viewers who construct a visual meaning from the
Oklahoma City
bombing story and viewers who do not construct a visual
meaning from the
story.
H2b: A significant difference in local television news exposure
exists between viewers who construct a visual meaning from
the Oklahoma
City bombing story and viewers who do not construct a visual
meaning from
the story.
Relying on the cultivation literature and research on television
exposure and visual processing, the third hypothesis predicts a relationship
between visual meaning and fear of terrorism.
H3: Fear of terrorism is higher for viewers who construct a
visual meaning from the Oklahoma City bombing story than for
viewers who do
not construct a visual meaning.
Methods
In exploring the correspondence between the media messages and
public perceptions of terrorism, Wittebols (1991) recommends survey
methodologies. The present study collected data through a telephone survey
to test the hypotheses. A sample of 141 residents of a mid-sized metropolitan
community was selected using random-digit-dialing and the first-birthday method
of respondent selection. Sixty-two men and 79 women participated in that survey,
with respondents ranging in age from 18 to 80.
Procedures
Data were collected by journalism students at the University of XXX
from September 21, 1995 to October 22, 1995, which was five to six months
following the Oklahoma City bombing. Three attempts to contact parties at
assigned telephone numbers were made at different times before retiring
numbers. After confirming a telephone number, interviewers identified
themselves as University of XXX students who were conducting a study for the
journalism department on people's thoughts and feelings about then news. They
then asked to speak with the person in the home who had the last birthday. For
open-ended questions, interviewers were instructed to record responses verbatim,
up to two lines of text. After completing the questionnaire, interviewers
thanked respondents for their participation.
Measures
Visual meaning. A response that names something visual, when asked,
"What do you think of or see when I mention the Oklahoma City bombing?" for
example, "the building," or "the firefighter carrying the baby." Responses were
coded by an undergraduate research assistant. A coding reliability check on 20
percent of cases demonstrated a 100 percent agreement.
Television news exposure. A self-reported estimated amount of time a
respondent spends watching television news on an average day.
Local television news exposure. A self-reported estimated amount of
time a respondent spends watching local television news on an average day.
Fear of terrorism. A self-reported estimate of respondents' fear of
terrorism, using a scale of one through five, with one being lowest and five
being highest.
Limitations of the study
A larger sample that extends beyond one metropolitan area would
improve the representativeness of the respondents in terms of ability to
generalize results to the national population. While diverse, the people of XXX
may not statistically represent the U.S. population. However, use of random
digit dialing and the last birthday method of selecting respondents helps to
assure a representative sample of the population from which it was drawn.
Self-reported measures of media use may underestimate viewing habits of
respondents. However, gathering ethnographic data on media exposure for this
study would be an unrealistic expectation.
Results and discussion
The first set of hypotheses predicted that the more frequently a
person watches television news, the greater that person's fear of terrorism.
The data support the hypothesis for local television news exposure, yielding a
significant positive correlation with fear of terrorism (r=.28, P<.01). The
data were not significant for television news exposure. At first glance, the
finding appears antithetical to what might be expected. Since the bombing was a
national news story, and news exposure includes both national and local news,
one would expect the heavier news viewers to exhibit greater fear of terrorism.
However, the story received heavy coverage on local news programs as well as on
national news. Research shows that people identify with local news over network
news (Wilson, 1993), and their images may help "...shape the audience's
emotional and cognitive responses..." (Entman, 1992, p. 348). As a result,
national images appearing on local newscasts may have more of an impact on
heavier local news viewers in terms of their perceptions of local conditions.
The second set of hypotheses predicted a significant difference in
television news exposure between respondents who did and did not construct a
visual meaning from the Oklahoma City bombing story. Findings supported the
hypothesis for television news but not local television news. T-tests revealed
that the 20 survey respondents who constructed a visual meaning were lighter
television news viewers (t=-3.24, P<.01). This finding may be indicating visual
desensitization for heavier news viewers. Griffiths and Shuckford (1989, p. 87)
propose that desensitization occurs when "...stimuli no longer remain important,
stimulating, and/or novel..." Heavier viewers' repeated and cumulative
exposure to violent images on television news may act to decrease the
importance, stimulation, and/or novelty of the images to these viewers. As a
result, visual images may not have as great an impact on visual meaning for
heavier viewers as they would on lighter viewers.
The third hypothesis predicted that respondents who constructed a
visual meaning from the Oklahoma City bombing story would have a higher fear of
terrorism than those who did not, but the data did not support the hypothesis.
The visuals made an impact on lighter viewers, in that they constructed visual
meanings of the bombing story five months after the event. But the visuals did
not appear to contribute to fear of terrorism for those lighter viewers. This
suggests that if visuals play a role in cultivation, more extensive and repeated
exposure to them may be key to their impact on social reality construction. For
heavier viewers, the visuals may have quickly translated to fear of terrorism.
and Then, just as quickly, those images may have lost their impact on the
meaning of the event. The meanings heavier viewers were more likely to
construct from the bombing focused on reaction rather than a visual image, for
example, "it could happen anywhere," "terrible," "anger," and "sadness."
Conclusions
This study explored the relationships among visual meaning
construction for the Oklahoma City bombing story, television news exposure, and
fear of terrorism. In line with what cultivation theory predicts, people who
watch more local television news expressed a greater fear of terrorism than the
lighter viewers. Heavier viewers were not, however, more likely to construct a
visual meaning from the Oklahoma City bombing story, despite the story's widely
broadcast and published compelling visual images. Instead, respondents who
described a visual image when asked about the Oklahoma City bombing story were
lighter television news viewers, indicating a greater visual impact on lighter
viewers over time.
"Wearout" or desensitization may explain this finding. The concept
of wearout is drawn from advertising research and is the potential result of
overexposure to television commercials. Memory for an ad can improve with
increased exposure, but after a certain point, viewers may stop paying attention
and memory could decline (see Hitchon & Thorson [1995] for a discussion of
research on wearout). A similar effect could apply for heavier television news
viewers when it comes to visual images repeatedly broadcast on stories such as
the Oklahoma City bombing. They may become saturated with the visuals, after
which point the heavier viewers rely less on visuals to construct their story
meaning. On the other hand, lighter viewers would see the visuals with less
frequency, being less likely affected by the wearout phenomenon.
Desensitization may be considered related to wearout, with heavier
viewers becoming desensitized after repeated and cumulative exposure to
particular television news images. The stimuli would no longer remain
"important, stimulating, and/or novel" (Griffiths & Shuckford, 1989, p. 87).
While these images may make an impact on heavier viewers in the short-term,
long-term visual impact may be weaker as these viewers are faced with processing
a continuous stream of visuals. Even a compelling visual may have a limited
"shelf life," as there is always another strong visual appearing on the tube to
take its place. Hence, when asked about the meaning of a five-month-old story,
the heavier viewer may think about the more abstract event rather than the
specific visual images related to the story. This idea is supported by research
on semiotic meaning and television news (author, 1995), in which heavier viewers
constructed more abstract meanings than lighter viewers for crime-specific
visuals, rather than focusing on "the thing" itself. For example, when shown an
image of a police car parked in front of a brownstone at night, the heavier
viewers interpreted the visual as a murder scene, or action involving drugs,
rather than simply a squad car.
Returning to the question posed earlier--How do visual images of
terrorism in television news influence our perceptions of terrorism? For
lighter viewers the compelling visual images appeared to have a long-term impact
on the meaning of the story. Their meanings focused on images of the blown-up
building, the children, and Timothy McVeigh. Heavier viewers' meanings instead
focused on reaction to those visuals, which is a step toward social reality
construction. This study showed that heavier local news exposure relates
positively with fear of terrorism. For heavier viewers, the images' impact may
be immediate, moving from visual event to interpretation. That interpretation
may then be stored and later retrieved to construct social reality--in
this case, fear of terrorism.
Future research in this area should focus on short-term visual
meaning, examining effects of compelling images shortly after they are
broadcast, in order to address the role of visuals in the cultivation process
and their relation to social reality construction.
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