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The effect of the perfect enemy : Anonymous' representation in the news media

After the attacks in Paris on November 13th 2015, the movement Anonymous has declared a cyber war to terrorist group ISIS that claimed responsibility for these attacks. According to Klein (2015) Anonymous has earlier been framed by the news media as malicious prankster, because their choice of targets did not align with western standards. However, ISIS can be seen as a common enemy of the West. As such, what is the effect of this newly chosen target on the representation of the movement in the media? Departing from this question, this thesis aims to research whether the attributes in use to represent Anonymous in the news media have normatively changed due to the taking on of a common western enemy. In fulfilling this aim, 21 articles published before and 21 articles published after the public declared war on ISIS on November 13th have been analysed based upon second level agenda setting theory. Focus is placed upon the attributes that describe Anonymous in the news media agenda and how these normatively evaluate the movement. In doing so, findings of this analysis present a change in the evaluation of the movement towards a more positive depiction.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-297058
Date January 2016
Creatorsvan de Bunt, Emily
PublisherUppsala universitet, Institutionen för informatik och media
Source SetsDiVA Archive at Upsalla University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeStudent thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text
Formatapplication/pdf
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

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