Coverage of the Abu Sayyaf Group in Filipino Journalism

The second presenter in this IAMCR 2024 session is Hao Jiang, who begins his presentation like a news anchor. His interest is in the news media coverage of the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group in the Philippines. This draws on the World Risk Society (not sure what this means), which influences how the UPI newspaper reports on the terrorist group.

This project conducted a content analysis of UPI’s coverage of the terrorists’ activities, exploring especially how these activities are labelled. They are described most often as extremists when they conduct kidnappings, but as terrorists when they engage in more destructive and violent activities. (OK, there are some very dodgy statistics other here which I won’t attempt to blog.)

In most of the coverage, no clear motive is given for the group’s activities; where a motive is stated, it is kidnap for ransom. This seems to sensationalise the danger, especially after deadly and brutal activities. (Sorry, but this was a very strange presentation.)