<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Although terrorist attacks in Europe have increasingly been carried out on cultural targets such as media institutions, concert halls and leisure venues, most research on media and terrorism draws conclusions based on traditional hard news stories rather than on journalism specialising in cultural issues. This study explores the distinctiveness of Swedish cultural journalism by comparing it to news journalism, using the 2015 terror attacks in Paris as a case study. Our content analysis reveals that whereas news journalism is mainly descriptive, focusing on the short-term consequences of terrorism, security frames and political elites and eyewitnesses as sources, cultural journalism is more interpretive, giving a voice first and foremost to “cultural elites”. The “cultural filter” put on this event means a focus on the longer term implications of terrorism and instead of engaging in the hunt for the perpetrators, there is greater emphasis on the societal dilemmas that terrorism accentuates, especially the democratic values that are at stake. However, our results also show that the ongoing “journalistification” of cultural journalism, as defined by a stronger prevalence of descriptive style, blurs the lines between news and cultural journalism.</p></abstract>

Although terrorist attacks in Europe have increasingly been carried out on cultural targets such as media institutions, concert halls and leisure venues, most research on media and terrorism draws conclusions based on traditional hard news stories rather than on journalism specialising in cultural issues. This study explores the distinctiveness of Swedish cultural journalism by comparing it to news journalism, using the 2015 terror attacks in Paris as a case study. Our content analysis reveals that whereas news journalism is mainly descriptive, focusing on the short-term consequences of terrorism, security frames and political elites and eyewitnesses as sources, cultural journalism is more interpretive, giving a voice first and foremost to “cultural elites”. The “cultural filter” put on this event means a focus on the longer term implications of terrorism and instead of engaging in the hunt for the perpetrators, there is greater emphasis on the societal dilemmas that terrorism accentuates, especially the democratic values that are at stake. However, our results also show that the ongoing “journalistification” of cultural journalism, as defined by a stronger prevalence of descriptive style, blurs the lines between news and cultural journalism.

The Difference Culture Makes

Nordicom Review

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Comparing Swedish news and cultural journalism on the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris

Although terrorist attacks in Europe have increasingly been carried out on cultural targets such as media institutions, concert halls and leisure venues, most...

	News (n=415)	Cultural journalism (n=122)
Private citizens*	38	8
Political*	31	10
Authorities*	11	1
Cultural*	6	67
Terror organisation	5	2
Civil society	4	3
Academia	4	5
Military	1	0
Economy	0	3
Other	<1	0
Total	100	99

	News (n=209)	Cultural journalism (n=105)
Style**
Descriptive	80	50
Interpretative	20	50
Total	100	100
Emotionality
Emotional	33	43
Unemotional	67	57
Total	100	100

	News (n=209)	Cultural journalism (n=105)
Societal disruption*	42	29
Security/surveillance**	40	12
Islamic extremism*	40	29
War and conflicts	26	20
Migration*	14	5
Political incapacity	13	11
Inequality and segregation	12	11
Attack on values**	9	29
Racism*	6	12

	News		Cultural journalism
	Descriptive (n=167)	Interpretative (n=42)	Descriptive (n=52)	Interpretative (n=53)
Societal disruption	47	19	40	17
Security/surveillance	38	45	4	21
Islamic extremism	37	55	14	43
Inequality and segregation	11	14	6	15
Migration	13	17	0	9
Attack on values	7	17	15	42
Political incapacity	9	31	6	17
Racism	4	14	8	17
War and conflicts	22	43	8	32

The Difference Culture Makes

Published Online: Jun 06, 2019

Page range: 3 - 18

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2019-0009

Keywords
terrorism, cultural journalism, journalistification, cultural filter, Paris attacks

© 2019 Riegert, Kristina, Widholm, Andreas published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Figure 1

Quoted actors (per cent)

Style and emotionality in news and cultural journalism (per cent)

Presence of problem frames (per cent)

Presence of frames in descriptive and interpretative items (per cent)

The Difference Culture Makes

Published Online: Jun 06, 2019

Page range: 3 - 18

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2019-0009

Keywordsterrorism, cultural journalism, journalistification, cultural filter, Paris attacks

© 2019 Riegert, Kristina, Widholm, Andreas published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Figure 1

Quoted actors (per cent)

Style and emotionality in news and cultural journalism (per cent)

Presence of problem frames (per cent)

Presence of frames in descriptive and interpretative items (per cent)

Keywords
terrorism, cultural journalism, journalistification, cultural filter, Paris attacks