A Rhetorical Analysis of The Boston Marathon Bombings

In the year 2013, Mid April there were two atomic bombs exploded almost banning Boston races Marathon annually held, killing three individuals and injuring dozens of others. Rescue workers and medics responded and gave aid to the hundreds of casualties following emergency plans police officers turned away arriving runners and directed them to Kenmore square. Detailed investigations began led by the Federal Bureau of investigations (Allan 194-195). The United States government indicated that there had been no initial intelligence reports before the attack. In an unfortunate turn of events, news organizations scramble to report on the happenings to update viewers and listeners across the globe. People did not have to wait to receive news from traditional outlets as amateur reporters began publishing unnecessary information online about the bombing quickly passing unreliable messages to the audience.

            The Thread, which is a documentary in Xbox entertainment studios, shoes how technology advancement and social media platforms have changed news coverage networks across the world. This transformation has led to both merits and also brought danger in the spread of news. With all the information running across the media houses surrounding the bombing incidence, the media propaganda perpetuated as vigilante justice saw several people receive false accusations regarding the matter.

Sources-The New York Times

            Rhetoric content analysis on Boston Marathon bombings as covered by NY Times

York Times article, “Families and City Mourn as Hunt for the Missing Continues.”

According to research regarding reporting’s from different sources such as the CNN newscast and an opinion piece of the New York Times, qualitative analysis explored how major United States newspapers used human emotional interests in their coverage. It came in that month of Boston bombing event which represents the first crisis event in an extended period. Different articles that are in U. S newspapers published the Boston Marathon bombings (Allan 198-199). The research showed how the articles framed runner’s responses because of personal and community dynamics, it also how the media platform used anger and sadness in an emotional strategy to show that the runners were still vulnerable to future terrorist attacks. Firsthand accounts of the unfortunate crisis and the respective responses were provided during that month as the unfolding event became part of several media reports.

            Scholarly articles and other rhetorical theories often point to the influence that the public media has on the society. In comparison, media framing theory indicates that the media use frames to control and direct people’s attention to some new information. It raises the outlook for some data and often downgrades others. By conducting a detailed rhetoric content analysis of these reports, the article research showed how race directors and media relations officers on how to develop an efficient long-term crisis communication management strategy (Biddinger et al. 100). The purpose of the direction was to ensure that the runners, supports, and race sponsors fully updated on the safety measures proceedings. The article focused on the running while the CNN television format addressed the media coverage regarding a public domain participating in a particular event. Consequently, while the article explored the dynamics and internal drive of runners in a general setting event, it failed to discuss how the media frame these motivations across the racing world. Research shows how human emotions in the coverage of news can affect reactions to a specific crisis.

Harvey Weinstein timeline

            The timeline gives the analysis of how the sexual harassment in Hollywood scandal came. The media delivers the story in continuous and spreading. New York Times publishes the story and details it in decades of allegations.    It was rocked form of the assertion that came in the light of the New York article. In this time, many women come for the report on how they get sexually harassed in Hollywood by Weinstein (Crain, Marion & Kenneth 45). It is through media that it is reported that women are forced to give him a message and look him naked. The report says that he rewarded them with the advancement of their career. Weinstein gives the apology for the same by acknowledging that he caused a lot of the harassment and pain to the female employees in about three decades. It is through this that the Hollywood reporters sue New York Times in consideration of the Weinstein apology. Weinstein tells media that he will take leave in Weinstein Company for the therapist job. In October, Brie Larson in accompanies to Lena Dunham reacts against the allegation given in the New York article. They provide the praise to those who came out for the report of the women harassment by Weinstein.  The company is put under inquiry after it is found to be guilty of the allegation (Crain et al. 78). The resignation of Weinstein is given by his lawyer Lisa Bloom after stating that Weinstein and his board will go to an agreement later. Weinstein is sucked by the board with immediate effect for the misconduct given in the light of the new information. In this case, we have seen that through women reaction to the crisis the breakthrough is seen in Hollywood. If the women kept in silence, they could suffer in this for an extended period.

            The media plays a significant role during crisis situations to communicate and provide useful information to the public. It is crucial to understand how social media portrayed runners during the Boston Marathon Bombings. It framed individual’s elements and covered the impacts of human interest had on the news. It is the mandate of the media to include every detail in the event of any crisis. The press is meant to give the information the way it was without any biases. In fact, media is just a neutral it does not support either site, but report provide precisely what is happening in case of the crisis.

Individual emotions turn crisis into a human news event

            People interest frames are employed by the media to emphasize human emotions during a disaster such as that of the Boston Marathon Bombing. It makes the public view and faces the issue at hand and regards the problem as a serious and dangerous one. The human elements used in the article included human victims and the persons responsible for the attack (Slovic 425). Findings indicate that in cases of massive terrorist’s attacks, the frames were used in future levels of media’s coverage and reporting as the expected developments began to slow down. The article conducted a rhetoric content analysis of news coverage from NBC, NY Times and Fox news regarding the Boston attack, evaluating political, criminal, and economic disaster frames. This provided fact, analysis and guidance on how the shooting occurred, time of occurrence and the time the media started drawing different conclusions on the matter

Emotions affect media and public during a crisis

            According to the CNN format, research analysis showed that emotional responses influenced how the audience reacted and coped with a crisis event. The level to which people perceived the crisis to be controlled and predicted by intelligence reports played a crucial role in the emotions victims, and professional felt towards the crisis.

            Regarding the NY Times article; ”Anger of Killer was on Exhibit in His Writings,” the analysis shows how expected controllability resulted in the anger, sadness, and fright among the victims and other people. The various studies show how crisis perception to be predicted got from the news article affected audience emotions. It all depends on the way people react during the time of any given crisis.

Distance running shows victim elements

            The Boston Marathon bombing attack saw several media platforms turn their unreliable news against the participants The mainstream media coverage comprehended the running’s individual’s aspects during such terrorist activities.

Results

Fantasy theme analysis

            The content analysis displayed several issues revealing that the media coverage portrayed runners as a consequence of both personal and societal dynamics. It also uncovered the theme of fear, sadness, anger, and vulnerability as part of the emotional framing. Runners are committed to running and use the activity to cope with life’s problems. They noted how various runners had participated in several Boston marathon race due to personal commitment (Biddinger et al. 103).

Running community included supports. Coverage on the media showed those who did not actively participate in the races but provide support to the participants. For example, an article highlighted how a young boy was injured while he waited for his father to approach the finish line. Some of the individuals supported the activity by cheering on their friends and family members.

Visual analysis

            The nature of mainstream media being both dynamic and multi-lingual faces significant difficulties in analysis efforts. It empowers analyst with a clear understanding of people perception of events and crisis situations. Comparing the articles that provide conflicting information regarding the Boston attack, visual analytics was mainly used by some reports to give a high-level overview of the facts. While most media visualization approaches rely on features such as temporary and geographical, some systems are upholding evolution for a particular topic. This approach is aimed to ensure that the articles provide the correct information during a crisis event. Different studies have explored how the 2013 Boston bombing influenced security operations at sporting events and venues (Slovic 426).

Conclusion

Future research on articles should explore other media formats for example televisions, online websites to test how they framed runners during a similar crisis. Media studies should analyze how local Boston media platform depicted runners to compare national and regional newspaper publications. It would enable reporters to strategies on the best communication during a crisis (Allan 205). The journalists wrote these articles should be interviewed to understand how they perceive runners and their rationale behind the framing of Boston Marathon runners. The information got would be utilized to handle another crisis using a better communication strategy. In the media analysis, it has found that the main impact comes from the reaction of people over any given crisis.

Works cited

Allan, Stuart. ”Witnessing in crisis: Photo-reportage of terror attacks in Boston and London.”         Media, War & Conflict 7.2 (2014): 133-151.

Biddinger, Paul D., et al. ”Be prepared—the Boston Marathon and mass-casualty events.” New    England journal of medicine368.21 (2013): 1958-1960.

Crain, Marion G., and Kenneth Matheny. ”Sexual Harassment and Solidarity.” (2018).

Gupta, Aditi, Hemank Lamba, and Ponnurangam Kumaraguru. ”$1.00 per rt# bostonmarathon#        prayforboston: Analyzing fake content on twitter.” eCrime Researchers Summit (eCRS),             2013. IEEE, 2013.

Krause, Don, and Mark Smith. ”Twitter as mythmaker in storytelling: the emergence of hero     status by the Boston police department in the aftermath of the 2013 marathon bombing.”       The Journal of Social Media in Society 3.1 (2014).

Slovic, Paul. ”Terrorism as a hazard: A new species of trouble.” Risk analysis 22.3 (2002): 425-    426.