Patterns of Language Use of The Terrorism News Beat with Dr. Aaron Hoffman
By Savannah Reape, Senior and Jackson Craig Scott, Graduate Teaching Assistant, Baker School
An expert on international security, terrorism, and media found that the news does not deliberately report negatively regarding terrorism. Dr. Aaron Hoffman, Political Science Professor at Simon Fraser University, gave a lecture at the Howard H. Baker Jr. School of Public Policy and Public Affairs entitled “Sensationalized News? Patterns of Language Use on The Terrorism News Beat.” Hoffman has presented his work in the United States and Europe as part of a scholarly advisory group, to the U.S. Air Force, and in workshops on Middle East politics by the Israeli government.
In his book “The Terrorism News Beat, Professionalism, Profit, and the Press,” Dr. Hoffman asks the question: What are the patterns of language use regarding the US media’s reporting of terrorism? He found that the terrorism news beat is not so sensationalized after all. Dr. Hoffman theorized that critics have been mischaracterizing the terrorism news beat in various ways.
Dr. Hoffman believes this matters because of the influence that the media has on the public. It is widely believed that the media coverage of terrorism makes terrorism worse. It makes the public feel insecure, and terrorist groups see this as accomplishing their goal of generating fear. Dr. Hoffman’s research suggests that news produced from major news organizations should not be treated as toxic news product.
Dr. Hoffman focused on two different types of media models: the profit seeking model and the professional model. The profit seeking model states that journalists have abandoned quality and their writing has become more sensational. Sensational language is defined as language that is negative and is more likely to generate a response by readers. The professional model of news production assumes that journalism has rules, norms, and principles that define quality work. The first experiment was conducted using articles from 1997-2014 from the New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post.
Dr. Hoffman’s experiments found that news about terrorism has not been deliberately sensationalized in order to make more profit. He reported that journalists are not unprofessional regarding their use of positive and negative language when reporting about terrorism. Instead, he found that US journalism authentically reports on terrorism and that it is used to inform the public about this important issue.