Patriotic journalism: An appeal to emotion and cognition
- Resource Type
- Authors
- Inbar Cohen; Avshalom Ginosar
- Source
- Media, War & Conflict. 12:3-18
- Subject
- 021110 strategic, defence & security studies
Sociology and Political Science
Communication
05 social sciences
0211 other engineering and technologies
050801 communication & media studies
Cognition
02 engineering and technology
0508 media and communications
Appeal to emotion
Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
Political Science and International Relations
Terrorism
Journalism
Psychology
Social psychology
- Language
- ISSN
- 1750-6360
1750-6352
Patriotic behavior in the journalistic coverage of conflicts is usually related to the coverage of wars and terrorist attacks. Such behavior is characterized in the literature by various practices which deviate from the objective or neutral model of journalism and which are more closely related to the ‘our news’ or ‘our war’ mode of coverage. This study suggests an analytical framework that classifies the indicators of patriotic journalistic coverage in two categories: appealing to public emotions, and appealing to public cognition. This framework is tested in the analysis of two related events: the killing of a terrorist by a state, and the revenge action carried out by a terrorist organization. Both types of patriotic indicator were found in both events. While the authors’ findings enhance the view that journalists take sides in national conflicts, they undermine the assertion that journalists use different practices of patriotic coverage depending on whether ‘their side’ is the aggressor or the victim in the conflict.