Framing Social Threats: Analyzing Topics and Sentiments in 30 Years of Swiss Media Coverage of Extremism
Terrorist events, and the people and groups carrying them out, are often widely covered in the news, even in countries with little history of terrorism. Consequently, media narratives have played a key role in framing the discourse around these events, and extremism more generally. The media’s discursive choices when reporting on extremism reflect views about the phenomenon, the societal conflicts that are interwoven with it, its origins, and where justice lies.
Recognizing extremism as a significant social threat, Switzerland has invested heavily in counter-radicalization strategies to preempt potential threats. Additionally, Switzerland’s rich and diverse media landscape offers a unique perspective on how extremism is framed and discussed. Relying on a longitudinal corpus of print and digital media coverage, I identify legal, political, and social topics associated with 30 years of Swiss media coverage of extremism across the political spectrum.
I use natural language processing techniques to assess the salience of this coverage over time and extract key topics and sentiments from roughly 280’000 documents. The findings from these analyses point to key factors that help explain popular perceptions associated with extremist threats in contemporary democracies. I conclude with a discussion of the challenges and responsibilities of the media when reporting on extremism and argue for a revision of outdated media frames.