The bad guy is one of us: framing comparison between the US and Korean newspapers and blogs about the Virginia Tech shooting

Abstract

This study examines cross-national and cross-media differences in framing, particularly regarding the salience of collectivistic storytelling, based on the US and Korean newspapers and blogs about the Virginia Tech campus shooting incident. Although collectivistic storytelling is a common practice of news domestication, the degree of its salience is affected by a nation’s orientation toward collectivism. Cross-media level of difference also exists because journal-istic perspectives and the public’s interpretation of those perspectives, as reflected in newspapers and blogs, are different. Findings indicate that while there are some consistent framing patterns, the degree of collectivism was different between the two nations and between the two media.