Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Deranged Loners And Demented Outsiders? Therapeutic News Frames Of Presidential Assassination Attempts, 1973-2001, Kristen Hoerl, D. L. Cloud, S. E. Jarvis

Scholarship and Professional Work - Communication

There were 7 assassination attempts on U.S. presidents between 1973 and 2001. In this article, we critically examine coverage of each attack in The New York Times and The Washington Post, describing how the coverage employs therapeutic discourse frames that position the president as vulnerable and portray the attackers as lonely and demented outsiders. Noticing contradictions in this pattern, we also identify counterframes, including those acknowledging the political motivations of the assassins, the diminished public sphere that is a context for those actions, and the contradictions in a legal system that denies the insanity pleas of those framed so extensively …