TERRORIST ATTACK IN THE HOLY ARTISAN CAFÉ, BANGLADESH: AN ANALYSIS ON NEWS FRAMING

Abstract

This article analyzes the societal consequence of the news framing of the terrorist attack in the Holy Artisan Café of Bangladesh which killed 29 people, including 20 hostages (17 foreigners and 3 locals), two police officers, five gunmen, and two bakery staff. on 1st July 2016. With the application of both quantitative and qualitative research methodology, the researcher studied 134 news articles regarding the terrorist attack on the two prominent newspapers of Bangladesh: “The "Daily Star”, and “The "Prothom Alo” dated from 01 July 2016 to 01 July 2017. The quantitative analysis of the comparative framing of media coverage of these two prominent newspapers, the article found that i) 88.81% coverage of these two dailies are generically news articles, ii) the major source (41.04%) of this news is Bangladesh Police, iii) only 11.94% articles interpret the reasons and political consequence of the terrorist attack, iv) 88.16% news is descriptive, v) the contextual framework of 63.43% news is episodic. With an application of the Content Analysis method, the qualitative research found that: the news coverage of the two dailies regarding the Holy Artisan attack in Bangladesh had far-reaching societal consequences impacting public perceptions, government policies, security measures, and social dynamics.