What Katrina revealed: A visual analysis of the hurricane coverage by news wires and U.S. newspapers

Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly

Volumn 84, Issue 3, 2007, Pages 546-561

  Fahmy, Shahira ^a   Kelly, James D ^b   Kim, Yung Soo ^a  

^a SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b INDIANA UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

HURRICANE KATRINA 2005; INFORMATION; MEDIA ROLE; PHOTOGRAPH;

NORTH AMERICA; UNITED STATES;

EID: 38549160597     PISSN: 10776990     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/107769900708400309     Document Type: Article

References (60)

1. Richard D. Knabb, Jamie R. Rhome, and Daniel P. Brown, "Tropical Cyclone Report, Hurricane Katrina, 23-30 August 2005," National Hurricane Center, http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/TCR-AL122005_Katrina.pdf (accessed November 24, 2006).
2. Chris A. Paterson, "The Transference of Frames in Global Television," in Framing Public Life, ed. Stephen D. Reese, Oscar H. Gandy, and August E. Grant (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001), 337-53.
3. Erving Goffman, Frame Analysis (New York: Harper & Row, 1974).
4. Lyombe Eko, "Framing and Priming Effects," in Clarifying Communication Theories: A Hands-On Approach, ed. Gerald Stone, Michael Singletary, and Virginia P. Richmond (Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press, 1999), 276-88.
5. See, for example, Robert M. Entman, "Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm," Journal of Communication 43 (December 1993): 51-58.
6. Shahira Fahmy, "'They Took It Down': Exploring Determinants of Visual Reporting in the Toppling of the Saddam Hussein Statue in National and International Newspapers," Mass Communication & Society 10 (April - June 2007): 143-70.
7. Susan D. Moeller, Shooting War: Photography and the American Experience of Combat (New York: Basic Books, 1989).
8. Sandra Moriarty and David Shaw, "An Antiseptic War: Were News Magazine Images of the Gulf War Too Soft?" Visual Communication Quarterly 2 (spring 1995): 4-8.
9. Shahira Faluny and Daekyung Kim, "Picturing the Iraq War: Constructing the Image of War in British and U.S. Press," Gazette: International Communication Gazette (In press).
10. Michael Griffin, "Picturing the 'New War': Newsmagazine Images of Conflict Revisited" (paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Seoul, Korea, July, 2002).
11. Yung-Soo Kim and Zoe Smith, "News Images of the Terrorist Attacks: Framing September 11th and Its Aftermath Through the Pictures of the Year International Competition" (paper presented at the annual meeting of the AEJMC, Kansas City, MO, August 2003).
12. Shahira Fahmy, Filling out the Frame: Transnational Visual Coverage and News Practitioners' Attitudes towards the Reporting of War and Terrorism (Saarbrücken, Germany: VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, 2007).
13. Pamela J. Shoemaker and Stephen D. Reese, Mediating the Message: Theories of Influences on Mass Media Content, 2d ed. (White Plains, NY: Longman, 1996).
14. Paterson, "The Transference of Frames in Global Television."
15. Wayne Wanta and Virginia Roarke, "Response Photographs," Visual Communication Quarterly 1 (spring 1994): 12-13.
16. Dennis McQuail, Mass Communication Theory, 5th ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2005).
17. Shahira. Fahmy, "Emerging Alternatives or Traditional News Gates: Which News Sources Were Used to Picture the 9/11 Attack & the Afghan War?" Gazette 67 (October 2005): 383-400.
18. The study examined photographs in the U.S.-owned English-language newspaper published in Paris, the International Herald Tribune (IHT) and the Saudi-owned Arabic-language newspaper published in London, Al-Hayat. Both newspapers are well-respected elite papers with an approximate circulation of 200,000 each. They represent two of the best foreign news organizations afforded by transnational press catering to both English-and Arabic-speaking cultures. The author indicated that both papers had access to visual information from identical Western news agencies, including AP and Reuters wire services.
19. David M. White, "The 'Gatekeeper': A Case Study in the Selection of News," Journalism Quarterly 27 (fall 1950): 383-90.
20. Shahira Fahmy, "Photojournalists' & Photo-editors' Attitudes & Perceptions: The Visual Coverage of 9/11 & the Afghan War," Visual Communication Quarterly 12 (summer/fall 2005): 146-63.
21. Kimberly L. Bissell, "A Return to 'Mr. Gates': Photography and Objectivity," Newspaper Research Journal 21 (summer 2000): 81-93.
22. Shoemaker and Reese, Mediating the Message.
23. Shoemaker and Reese, Mediating the Message.
24. Knabb, Rhome, and Brown, "Tropical Cyclone Report, Hurricane Katrina, 23-30 August 2005."
25. Shoemaker and Reese, Mediating the Message.
26. McQuail, Mass Communication Theory.
27. Kenneth Kobré, "Editing for Intimacy," Visual Communication Quarterly 6 (spring 1999): 18-19.
28. Kobré, "Editing for Intimacy."
29. Kristen A. Swain, "Proximity and Power Factors in Western Coverage of the Sub-Saharan Aids Crisis," Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 80 (spring 2003): 145-65.
30. Ken Smith and Cindy Price, "Content Analysis of Representation: Photographic Coverage of Blacks by Nondaily Newspapers," in Handbook of Visual Communication: Theory, Methods, and Media, ed. Ken Smith, Kenneth L. Smith, Sandra Moriarty, Gretchen Barbatsis, and Keith Kenney (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2005), 127-38;
31. Willard F. Enteman, "Stereotyping, Prejudice, and Discrimination," in Images That Injure: Pictorial Stereotypes in the Media, ed. Paul M. Lester and Susan D. Ross (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003), 15-22.
32. Paul M. Lester, "African-American Photo Coverage in Four U.S. Newspapers, 1937-1990," Journalism Quarterly 71 (summer 1994): 380-94.
33. Smith and Price, "Content Analysis of Representation: Photographic Coverage of Blacks by Nondaily Newspapers";
34. Paul M. Lester and Ron Smith, "African-American Photo Coverage in Life, Newsweek and Time, 1937-1988," Journalism Quarterly 67 (spring 1990): 128-36.
35. Shannon Kahle, Nan Yu, and Erin Whiteside, "An Examination of Portrayals of Race in Hurricane Katrina Coverage" (paper presented at the annual meeting of the AEJMC, San Francisco, CA, August 2006).
36. Dustin Harp, "Newspapers Transition from Women's to Style Pages: What Were They Thinking?" (paper presented at the annual meeting of the AEJMC, Kansas City, MO, August 2003);
37. Randall S. Sumpter, "A Case Study: How to Get on (or Stay Off) the Front Page," Newspaper Research Journal 21 (summer 2000): 39-50.
38. See Steve Pasternack and Sandra Utt, "America's Front Pages: A 10-Year Update," Newspaper Research Journal 16 (fall 1995): 2-12;
39. Kobré, "Editing for Intimacy";
40. Wayne Wanta, "The Effects of Dominant Photographs: An Agenda-Setting Experiment," Journalism Quarterly 65 (spring 1988): 107-11;
41. Hyun-Joo Lee Huh, "The Effect of Newspaper Picture Size on Readers' Attention, Recall, and Comprehension of Stories" (paper presented at the annual meeting of the AEJMC, Kansas City, MO, August 2003);
42. Bert Woodburn, "Reader Interest in Newspaper Pictures," Journalism Quarterly 24 (September 1947): 197-201.
43. The authors gratefully acknowledge the cooperation of Jorge Jaramillo, sales representative at AP Images, and Nancy Glowinski at Reuters Picture Archive.
44. The use of the two news agencies is warranted because of their influence, prestige, and near ubiquity. Every newspaper examined in this study used at least one photograph from one of the two wire services. See Shahira Fahmy, "Picturing Afghan Women: A Content Analysis of AP Wire Photographs during the Taliban Regime and After the Fall of the Taliban Regime," Gazette 66 (April 2004): 91-112;
45. Fahmy, "Emerging Alternatives or Traditional News Gates: Which News Sources Were Used to Picture the 9/11 Attack & the Afghan War?"
46. The variable is intended to capture the stereotypical imagery. Therefore, the suffering of white citizens was not coded.
47. Ole R. Holsti, Content Analysis for the Social Sciences and Humanities (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1969), 140.
48. See Paul M. Lester, "Mentors, Ethics, War, Hurricanes and Weapons of Mass Instruction," Visual Communication Quarterly 12 (summer /fall 2005): 136-45.
49. Lester, "Mentors, Ethics, War, Hurricanes and Weapons of Mass Instruction," 143.
50. For example, Maxwell McCombs, "News Influence on Our Pictures of the World," in Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research, ed. Jennings Bryant and Dolf Zillmann (Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1994), 1-16;
51. Paterson, "The Transference of Frames in Global Television";
52. Wanta and Roarke, "Response Photographs," 12-13.
53. See Fahmy, "Emerging Alternatives or Traditional News Gates: Which News Sources Were Used to Picture the 9/11 Attack & the Afghan War?"
54. Maxwell McCombs and Donald L. Shaw, "Structuring the 'Unseen Environment,"' Journal of Communication 26 (June 1976): 18-22;
55. D. Gold and J. L. Simmons, "News Selection Patterns among Iowa Dailies," Public Opinion Quarterly 29 (fall 1965): 425-30.
56. See Daniel J. Boorstin, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo Events in America (New York, Harper and Row, 1962).
57. U.S. Census Bureau, "State & County Quick Facts-New Orleans (city), Louisiana," http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/22/ 2255000.html (accessed November 23, 2006).
58. Shahira Fahmy and Wayne Wanta, "What Visual Journalists Think Others Think?: The Perceived Impact of Visual Reporting on Public Opinion Formation," Visual Communication Quarterly 14 (winter 2007): 16-31.
59. See Kahle, Yu, and Whiteside, "An Examination of Portrayals of Race in Hurricane Katrina Coverage."
60. Because the photographs analyzed did not depict a large number of looters, efforts in this particular case failed to explore whether African American citizens were stereotypically portrayed differently than white citizens.