Comentado [l1]: Excellent!

A project which has the level

Afghan Explosions in American Media of a postgraduate research. 10.

Emilia Koponen
Katri Saariaho
Aplicaciones del anlisis del discurso a la lengua inglesa
Grupo 810
CONTENTS Comentado [l2]: Good organization.

CONTENTS ..................................................................................................................................................... 1

1. INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................... 2

2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ........................................................................................................... 2

2.1. THE AFGHAN CONFLICT ......................................................................................................................... 2
2.2. NARRATIVE AND EVALUATION............................................................................................................... 3
2.3. DISCOURSE AND POWER, IDEOLOGY ...................................................................................................... 4
2.4. DISCOURSE ANALYSIS AND CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS............................................................... 4
2.5. MEDIA, CONFLICT COVERAGE AND THE AFGHAN CONFLICT ................................................................. 6

3. DATA ............................................................................................................................................................ 7

4. METHOD ..................................................................................................................................................... 8

5. ANALYSIS ................................................................................................................................................... 9
5.1. CONTEXT ................................................................................................................................................ 9
5.2. THE WASHINGTON POST ...................................................................................................................... 10
5.3. THE NEW YORK TIMES ......................................................................................................................... 13

6. CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION ....................................................................................................... 16

APPENDICES................................................................................................................................................ 20
TALIBAN STRIKES IN HEART OF KABUL IN DEADLY ATTACK ON ELITE AGENCY ........................................ 20
15 AMBULANCES AND HUNDREDS OF VICTIMS: KABUL ATTACK GIVES SERVICE GRIM TEST ................. 24

1
1. INTRODUCTION Comentado [l3]: Good

Afghanistan has been the site for a violent, difficult and unrelenting conflict for decades. October
2001 marked the beginning for the most recent official conflict, i.e. the Afghan war, and hostilities
still continue in the country in the present day. One of the most recent and deadliest eruptions occurred
on April 19th, when a terrorist attack killed many and wounded hundreds.

The Afghan conflict has received extensive media coverage over the years. As the conflict involves
certain juxtaposition between two nations, politics and religion, it entails the risk for politically
motivated and biased language use. This in itself is nothing new, especially when regarding the long
history of the conflict, but it stands in conflict with objectivity, accuracy and neutrality that are
regarded as the criteria for news reporting, not least because of journalists own assertions (White
2000:379). Conflict coverage, in general, is similarly subject to power abuse, which can occur through
deliberate distortion of news or exclusion of information. Sometimes this is due to journalists own
opinions, feelings and ideologies (Cottle 2006:75; Kempf 2002:59-60), and sometimes it is the
government or the military that intervenes with the media (Cottle 2006:74-99).

The present study aims to contribute to the body of knowledge of discourse in media reports on the
conflict. The aim of the study is to analyse news reports on the conflict and see how the terrorist
attack in Kabul is represented in the media. Previous studies on the topic show that the media is both
subject to power abuse and executing it, and this suggests that there is room for a more recent
research. Our method of analysis will draw from Critical Discourse Analysis, which aims to uncover
ideologies and power use in discursive events. If these appear, they can result in inequality, which
affects people, groups and societies. The media plays a crucial role as the mediator of the world to a
mass of people, and it is thus important to examine which views and representations it passes forward.

2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

2.1. The Afghan conflict

The articles that we will be analyzing are about a terrorist attack in Afghanistan, so it is necessary to
first offer a brief background on the conflict in Afghanistan (to an extent that is relevant within the
scope of the present study). In October 2001, the US troops and their allies started an invasion of
Afghanistan in order to replace the Taliban government and to dismantle al-Qaeda. This was a

2
response to the 9/11 attacks, since Taliban allowed al-Qaeda to operate inside the country. According
to professional estimations, 106,000-170,000 civilians were killed during the first 10 years of the
conflict (IPPNW 2015:78). The Afghan war lasted for 13 years, during which the country saw also
the involvement of ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) that was established by the UN
security council and later taken over by NATO. By the end of 2014, foreign troops transferred the
responsibility of the war to Afghan security forces. As Exoo (2010:38) points out, this was only the
beginning: Afghanistan was left with starvation, half a million refugees, and would subsequently face
provincial rule by brutal, opium-growing warlords and the return of Taliban. In consequence, violent
eruptions and unrest persist in Afghanistan, and American forces still conduct combat operations in
what they call a fight against terrorism (Rosenberg & Schmitt 2015).

2.2. Narrative and evaluation

Narrative is an important element to observe in news discourse. As Daniel (1995: 64) states, the
narrativization of news discourse oversimplifies what often are highly complex situations. News fit
into old, familiar storylines, and the world is presented as dichotomous there is the good and the
bad, the hero and the villain. These characterizations are so pervasive that the ideological
formulations disguised and embedded in standard narratives seem natural and adequate
characterizations of reality (ibid.).

Narratives, however, are extremely various and heterogeneous in forms and functions and, for this
reason, it is virtually impossible to offer a wholly satisfactory definition of the term here. It can be
said, however, that all narratives present a sequence of events that are connected in a way that is
considered motivated and significant by the addressee (Toolan 2006: 604). Narrative has been most
extensively studied as verbal art and, in the early twentieth century, Russian formalists distinguished
between two levels in narrative poetics: story and discourse. The former refers to a basic description
of the fundamental events of the story in their natural chronological order and of the roles of the
characters in that story. The latter, in turn, denotes that version of the story that is actually realized in
a literary or cinematic creation, for example. In addition, this term is also used to refer to all the
techniques used by the author in the presentation of the basic story. For this reason, it is the level of
discourse that has traditionally been considered to be more likely to present evaluative contrasts or
discriminations (Toolan 2006: 604). As it is the level of discourse that we are especially interested in
in this study, we will take a better look at the definition of the term in section 2.3.

3
All narratives typically encode subjectivity, which contradicts the objectivity principle of news
reporting. Evaluative components of a text are always subject to choice, and reveal the speakers or Comentado [l4]: Very good overview of narrative.

the writers position and attitudes towards the events, putting them into a hierarchical order. Typical
examples of evaluative language are the use of subjective adjectives and adverbs, the use of
intensifiers and downtoners, and the use of other loaded words, to name a few. The concept of
involvement, which refers to the strategies used to make the story expressive and attractive to the
audience, overlaps with that of evaluation; the use of intensifiers, direct speech and dialogues,
repetition, metaphors, irony, etc., can be considered both strategies of involvement and evaluative
language.

2.3. Discourse and power, ideology

As we will be analysing newspaper articles that are pieces of media discourse, it is necessary to define
the term discourse as well. Discourse has a multitude of definitions. The definitions offered here will
fall in line with the subsequent use of the term. On a general level, discourse refers to language use
as a social practice (Fairclough 1995a:7). It can be both written and spoken. Foucaults (1981, cited
in Pietikinen 2000:192) renowned view is that language in use (discourse) is a socially constructive
phenomenon; it constructs and affects its objects and topics. On the other hand, discourse also
complies with its social conditions. As Fairclough (1995a:7) formulates this, to use a particular
language one needs to apply the grammar and vocabulary of that particular language, but one also
needs to make choices between different discourses.

At this point it is necessary to clarify the dual usage of the term discourse. Discourse can be a wide
and general term for language use. According to Blommaert (2005: 2), discourse, in this sense, is
language-in-action, a general mode of semiosis. However, the term also refers to the situational
realization of language use (Pietikinen 2000: 192). To put it simply, different discourses offer the
means to express one thing in different ways and with different implications. For example, militant
factions can be represented either as freedom fighters or terrorists. Also, as different discourses have
been formulated through sociocultural discursive practices over time, discursive events reproduce
their legacy, but they have also the prospect of transforming it to something different (Fairclough
1995a: 10).

2.4. Discourse Analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis

4
The main theoretical framework in the present study will draw from Critical Discourse Analysis
(henceforth CDA), which is a subcategory for discourse analysis (henceforth DA). To be clear, our
research approach is not exactly CDA: CDA does not have explicit directives as to what to include
in the analysis on the level of linguistic features, and we want to avoid theoretical and methodological
mislabeling since we will only focus on selected linguistic aspects. In any case, CDA forms the base
for our approach, and CDA and DA should therefore be defined here.

Firstly, DA studies language use as a social practice and does so by examining the whole organization
of discourse, i.e., both the phonological, grammatical, lexical and higher levels, for instance,
distribution of speaking turns (Fairclough 1995a:7). This is due to the assumption that any level of
organization may be relevant to critical analysis. This type of detailed analysis of texts is what
Fairclough (2003:2) calls textually oriented discourse analysis. To be clear, there are also branches
of DA that study other phenomena through language use and are used more in the area of social
sciences, whereas textual DA is a detailed linguistic analysis of texts.

While DA analyses language as a social practice, CDA studies language critically as a sociocultural
phenomenon on three levels. This means that it integrates 1) analysis of discourse, 2) analysis of
processes of text production, consumption and distribution, and 3) sociocultural analysis of the
discursive event (Fairclough 1995a:23). In other words, it does not analyse the linguistic and textual
features only, but relates them to their social context. Comentado [l5]: Very good.

The key concepts of CDA in relation to this study are those of representation and ideology.
Representation, in short, is a semiotic process that draws for instance from symbols, narratives and
textual genres (Blommaert 2005:203) to associate certain features to people or things in general. As
the use of language is always a matter of choice, choices have to be made also in the semiosis of
representation. Those choices can pass on different ideologies (Fairclough 1995b:24). Influenced by
Van Dijks (1995:18) definition, ideology can be defined as a system of ideas and principles that is
assumed to control the social reproduction of a social group, for instance, the representation of the
characteristics of that group. This occurs through the minds of the members of a particular ideology,
either consciously or unconsciously. Of course, it has to be pointed out that ideologies can range from
negative to positive, for instance from racist ideologies to those of equality. In any case, ideologies
affect the behaviour and cognitive processes of their members (Blommaert 2005:162), and, as they
control their conceptions of certain groups of people, they become a factor in power use. In the case
of media, this could mean for instance the reproduction and maintenance of a false depiction of

5
reality. In linguistic activity ideologies can be hidden, which means that their reproduction is
somewhat opaque. It is the aim of critical analysis to expose these instances of hidden ideologies and
use of power and dominance in discursive practices because they can result in social inequality,
which, in the extreme form of use of power through language, differentiates, discriminates and
excludes people (Blommaert 2005:2). CDA is therefore a very practical tool in analysing the media
in general: the critical and, in a sense, all-encompassing nature of CDA means that it analyses the use
of power and examines which representations and ideologies are predominant and passed forward in
the media, and it also examines the effect that media discourse(s) have in the world.

2.5. Media, conflict coverage and the Afghan conflict

Media texts are the object of analysis since they can function as a platform for power use and the
reproduction and endorsement of ideologies which lead to inequality. Studies on the media can further
be motivated by what White (2000:379) has written on the production and consumption of media
texts. Firstly, the media generally claims to be factual, disinterested, impersonal and objective.
According to media theorists, on the other hand, the media is value laden and ultimately ideological,
and it serves the interests of economic and political elites. Secondly, the general publics uptake on
the news is usually rather uncritical, although they regard journalistic discourse as often inaccurate,
commercialized, sensationalist and biased. Luostarinen (2002:20) also points out that the press used
to be more openly political, so it is possible that the news are taken with less reservation today than
they were previously. In other words, what the media asserts itself to be is often in conflict with what
it really is, and this causes problems in its reception. Given the large role that the media has in
mediating and reproducing the world to its audience, it is thus important to take it into wider
investigation.

Media reports on conflicts can be subject to power abuse as much as other media texts. Moreover, as
wars and other military conflicts are closely tied to political, economic and/or religious interests and
ideologies, conflict reports can contradict or promote these ideologies. We will now present the main
points of conflict reportage together with some of its issues, and also examples of the treatment of
the Afghan conflict in the media.

Cottle (2006:74-99) has discussed instances where news coverage of wars is deliberately incomplete
or distorted. In some cases this is due to actions on the states part: the government and the military,
also in western democracies such as the USA, the UK and Australia, seek control over the media.

6
This can be pursued for instance by media censorship, restriction of journalists access to information
or close supervision of military minders or public relations officers. Perhaps the main reason for
this is that war threatens the political legitimacy of democratically elected governments, so interfering
with the media can help them reach or maintain the public support.

Although Cottles examples describe occasions where the party that intervenes with the media is in
war itself, they have relevance when examining the state-media relationship in other situations, too.
One of the effects of globalization is that intra-state conflicts become increasingly international in
nature and effects (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute 2005). Moreover, national
media tend to comply with their national governments (Cottle 2006:80). Thus, there is reason to
assume that governmental politics can have influence over the conflict coverage also when the state
is not directly involved in the conflict.

Of course, war reports can also be subject to journalists own opinions and ideologies, which can lead
to the distortion of war reports similarly to the examples above. Possible factors behind this are for
instance patriotism (Cottle 2006:75), journalists sympathy for the victims or the will to judge the
evil-doers (Kempf 2002:59-60). A rather extreme result of this is the fabrication of news or the control
or exclusion of information (ibid.). In any case, it is, again, the aim of CDA to uncover and examine
this kind of power use and the hidden ideologies in media reports.

The media coverage on the Afghan war has been the object of numerous academic studies. Exoo
(2010) describes how the US media turned the war into infotainment: the battles are presented as
dramatic stories where the US is fighting a liberating war against an oppressive enemy. This way the
media created a unified message of a justified war. The coverage on the conflict has been studied in
other countries too. Foster (2013), for instance, investigated the representation of the conflict in
Australian media. The results were that the military personnel took over many roles that would
traditionally be considered to be reporters tasks, and this led to restrictions in the media coverage
since the Australian military applied strategies that were designed to promote the militarys social
standing. Comentado [l6]: Interesting!

3. DATA

The data consists of two online articles from two American newspapers, The Washington Post and
The New York Times. The articles can be found in Appendices 1 and 2. The Washington Post (WP)

7
and The New York Times (NYT) have been chosen for observation since they are among the largest
newspapers by circulation in the USA (Alliance for Audited Media 2013), which, again, means that
their coverage and influence are significant. Also, the articles depict the same event, which makes it
easier to draw comparisons between them. In addition to that, both articles are relatively short (WP
925 words and NYT 700 words) which means that they can within the limits of the present study
serve as the data for a detailed linguistic analysis. The articles were collected from the newspapers
online archives because of their easy access.

The articles were published the 19th and 20th of April 2016, and their topic is a terrorist attack that
took place in Kabul, Afghanistan on the 19th of April by Taliban, the militant extremist Islamic
movement. The attack included a suicide bombing and gun battles. It was the deadliest attack in Kabul
in 15 years: according to the more up-to-date information in the NYT article, 64 people had been
killed and 347 wounded.

4. METHOD

Like stated above, the method of analysis of the current study is an application of CDA, which is a Comentado [l7]: As

qualitative method. Application of CDA here means that we will focus on certain research aspects
that are relevant with regard to the data and to the extent that serves the purpose of the present study,
considering the length of the articles. Unfortunately, the limited extent of the present study means
that many potentially relevant aspects have to be excluded from the analysis, for instance, the one of
multimodality. We will analyse selected linguistic aspects that have a somewhat frequent appearance
in the articles.

Firstly, we will look into some lexical features such as vocabulary choices and transitivity structures.
We will pay special attention to the naming of groups and the presentation of their activity in the
events. Transitivity (e.g. Montgomery 1986:236-245) is an important aspect of the analysis, since it
concerns the choice of structure in representing activity, circumstances and the persons connected to
the activity. The choice of structure in language use occurs less consciously than the choice of words,
but at the same time it can represent reality in dramatically different ways. As Montgomery points
out, the structural choices are often, in fact, ideological choices since they prefer a certain
representation of an event over another. Although lexis and transitivity are are largely overlapping
areas, we will try to treat them separately in order to attain a clearer presentation.

8
After the analysis on selected textual features we will continue the analysis to the second level of the
three-layer model of CDA presented in section 2.4. Moreover, we will analyse the result of the
linguistic features, for instance the possible connotations of the words used to describe groups and
thus the uptake of the text. We will observe particularly the identities that different groups are given
in the articles. Thirdly, we will analyse these findings in relation to their sociocultural context. In
relation to the research aims, the second level of analysis is the one that reveals if there is a bias of
some sort, or alternatively it helps us to identify the kind of narrative that we are dealing with. In case
a bias exists, the third level helps us understand what kind of bias (ideology) we are dealing with, and
what it tells us about the world. Of course, it may sometimes be impossible to treat these two levels
separately, so these are rather the guidelines for the analysis.

5. ANALYSIS

5.1. Context

Before the analysis it is necessary to offer a brief account of the context. Context is important,
because it is what evaluative practices very much stem from. As Blommaert (2005:40) points out,
context is potentially everything and contextualization is potentially infinite. Unfortunately, this
means that it is practically impossible to provide a comprehensive contextualization on the discursive
events in question within the scope of the present study. We will thus address those aspects of context
that are relevant for the analysis.

To some extent the context of the articles, both the sociocultural one and that of the news media, can
be seen as identical. The sociocultural context has largely been explained above the background of
the Afghan conflict and its ties to the US. The context of the news media is slightly more complex.
Firstly, there are two levels to it: the production and reception of news. Both levels comprise such a
wide range of aspects that, for an outside analyst, it is not possible to list them all. The former is
affected by factors such as access to sources of information and various editorial practices. The
reception, in turn, sets slightly different challenges for contextualization. Since both articles are freely
available in online form, it is impossible to know who reads them. To some extent it can be assumed
that the readers are people who live in the area and are like-minded with the newspapers, i.e., share
their political stance, but this cannot be taken for granted.

9
Regarding the political stances, a certain direction can be found in columns by the public editors. In
the aftermath of the 2008 US presidential elections, for instance, Deborah Howell (2008), the then-
ombudsman for Washington Post (WP), discussed reader complaints about the newspapers bias on
the elections. She wrote that while conservatives accused WP of a liberal bias, and journalism indeed
attracts liberals, the opinion pages had strong conservative tones, and there were conservatives and
centrists in the newspapers editorial board. In the case of The New York Times (NYT), Daniel
Okrent (2004), the ombudsman at the time, admitted that the newspaper had a liberal slant. He did,
however, note that NYT received complaints both from conservatives and the left wing; while the
former accused NYT of a liberal bias on a range of issues, the latter generally complained about the
coverage on electoral politics and foreign policy.

5.2. The Washington Post

The topic of the first article, titled Taliban strikes in heart of Kabul in deadly attack on elite agency,
is the terrorist attack in Kabul. The events are described in detail, but also the background of the
conflict and the political consequences of the attack are accounted for briefly.

First of all, the Taliban are referred to with various terms in the article. The Taliban and the group
might be seen as neutral namings, but far more frequent in this article is the use of action-descriptive
nouns such as Taliban gunmen, Taliban attackers, the Islamist insurgent group, the insurgents, and
so on. The (Islamist) militants and the militant group give an impression of non-organized and non-
institutionalized activity, while a suicide bomber and one gunman highlight the actions of an
individual. In addition, Taliban fighters is used once, a term that could perhaps be interpreted as a
reference to either freedom fighter or terrorist that is, it could have both positive and negative
connotations. In general, it can be said that the article makes references to the attackers, both
individuals and groups, in a multitude of way. However, the presentation implies no difference
between these parties, which portrays the attackers as one nameless, uniform group.

The opponent, in turn, is referred to with more neutral terms, and individuals are named more often.
The Kabul police spokesman, the spokesman for the Interior Ministry, the president of Afghanistan,
the secretary generals deputy special representative for Afghanistan, the U.S. militarys top
commander in Afghanistan, and even an individual worker at the intelligence agency that was the
target of the attack all appear in the article with their names. Afghan forces, Ghanis government, and
the Afghan government can be considered relatively neutral terms that, constracingly to the

10
description of Taliban, do imply a certain institutionalization and thus unquestionable legitimization.
Western-aided government, on the other hand, seems to be an echo of orientalism (e.g. Said 1978).
Orientalism, in short, sees Europe (the West, the self) as rational, developed and superior, among
other things, and the Orient (the East, the other) as its more or less direct opposite. Here the inclusion
of the modifier Western-aided suggests that it is important information; moreover, it strengthens the
old East-West juxtaposition and thereby seeks condemnation of acts against the West.

The attack itself is referred to with dynamic and dramatic terms like suicide blast, gun battle and
raid; all of them dynamic and dramatic. Also, the Afghan war is called the fight against the (Islamist)
militants on two occasions. This, too, supports the view of the Taliban as the uniform villain of the
story.

In addition, the use of subjective adjectives and adverbials, as well as that of intensifiers is frequent.
The following sentences, where some of the elements considered evaluative language are in cursive,
seem like non-standard news language:

The militants now appear to have followed through with the warnings in a shattering tally: at
least 28 people killed, more than 325 injured and authorities left struggling over how Taliban
attackers outwitted security patrols to carry out one of the most devastating attacks in Kabul in
years.

The blast was so powerful that it shattered windows and cracked building facades up to two miles
away.

This quotation marks what can be considered strategies of involvement. Firstly, the article uses
evaluative word that have a highly dramatizing effect, such as outwitted and devastating. Secondly,
it could be argued that choices like these, together with intensifiers such as so powerful are perhaps
not the most relevant information with regards to the topic, and thus contribute to an impression of
infotainment (section 2.5.)

In addition to this, many of the verbs used in this article are dynamic and dramatic: rage, vow,
struggle, shatter, rush, and shred, for example, can hardly be considered as neutral or objective
choices. The same applies to some noun phrases: expressions such as a shower of glass shards, jagged

11
pieces of the explosives-rigged truck, and bolstered offensive, for example, are used to dramatize the
story and thus make it more appealing to the reader.

Also, the fact that the article consists of very short paragraphs adds to the dramatic effect. The article
is only 925 words long, but is divided into 30 paragraphs. This means that each paragraph consists of
31 words approximately, which, in most cases, is one long sentence or two shorter ones. This gives
the article a sense of quick tempo, which creates the dramatic atmosphere. In addition, the first
paragraph of the article is clearly meant to attract the reader instead of providing them with the most
essential facts about the events:

KABUL - The suicide blast tore open the gates of the compound. One worker inside saw a
shower of glass shards and jagged pieces of the explosive-rigged truck.

The opening is very dramatic, extremely expressive and leaves the reader wanting for more; it does
not give any exact information on the agent and the object of activity. Instead, it offers highly
descriptive details from an individuals point of view.

Furthermore, there is some unnecessary repetition of the facts in the article. The information
contained in the 4th paragraph is repeated in the 14th paragraph, and the 3rd and 23rd paragraphs
contain exactly the same information. This is also an evaluative technique and is used to highlight the
importance of this information; as stated in chapter 2.2, evaluative language puts the events into a
hierarchical order.

As regards to the transitivity structures in the article, the Talibans actions are referred to with active
agent-affected structures. In some cases, the agent is the group and in others it is the attack carried
out by the group:

Taliban gunmen opened fire on Afghanistans equivalent of the Secret Service.

The blast was so powerful that it shattered windows and cracked building facades up to two
miles away.

In contrast to this, when referring to the death of one of the Taliban attacker, the Afghan forces
responsibility is wholly excluded:

12
 One gunman was killed, said Sadiq Sadiqqi, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry.

Also, on most of the occasions on which the Afghan agents or government are mentioned, they are
the affected:

-- authorities left struggling over how Taliban attackers outwitted security patrols to carry out
one of the most devastating attacks in Kabul in years.

For leaders in Kabul, it [the raid] may shatter for now any hope of reviving stalled peace talks
with the Taliban, and puts President Ashraf Ghani under growing pressure from rivals over his
efforts to reach out to Islamist insurgent group.

In short, narrativization here turns tragic events into exciting news; evaluative language and
techniques of involvement are used to make the article more appealing to the reader. The
representation of different actors was also somewhat asymmetrical, and Taliban are presented as
active agents whereas the opponent, the Afghan State, is the affected.

5.3. The New York Times

The attack in Kabul is also the topic of the NYT article. The aftermath of the attack is described in
close detail with particular focus on the Kabul Ambulance Service. There is also a short background
of the political situation.

The naming of groups and individuals in the NYT article is to great extent similar to the WP article.
Attackers and Taliban are described as insurgents, Haqqani network, a lethal arm (of the Taliban),
and militants. Thus, the attackers are again presented as an uniform group, and the semantic focus is
on the militancy and rebellion. The other main agent in the article, the ambulance service, is referred
to neutrally as teams, department and mechanic, which suggests a neutral and function-centered
interpretation. Similarly to the WP article, government officials are referred to by their titles, for
instance spokesman for the Interior Ministry, intelligence agency and elite security force. Surely these
lexical choices are probably due to journalists access to information about their real nature, unlike it
often is with Taliban, but it nevertheless leads to an unbalanced representation of different parties,
when the one gets a certain legitimization through institutionalization and the other one does not.

13
Moreover, elite force and top officials imply a certain level professionalism that is not granted for the
opposing side - although, it has to be noted that lethal arm does imply effectiveness on the part of the
attackers.

The attack itself is described as a firefight, grim test and carnage. As can be seen in the latter two, it
is again described on dramatizing terms. These choices suggest a condemnation of the attack as a
cruel deed, and parallels can certainly be drawn with Daniels (chapter 2.2.) concept of dichotomy
(division into good and bad). Dramatization, however, is not limited to these choices. Firstly, the
article describes the events largely in their contextual situation and in chronological order:

Seven minutes after a truck bomb went off in the Afghan capital on Tuesday, the first teams
from Kabul Ambulance Service reached the scene of devastation.

Right away, they knew the attack was bad, but not that it would turn out to be the deadliest in the
Afghan capital in 15 years of war.

As this example shows, the events are described in detail and the narrative structure is very much
story-like. Again, these can be seen as qualities of infotainment. Also, similarly to the WP article, the
paragraphs are at the shortest only one sentence long, which again gives the article a fast tempo and
a dramatic atmosphere since the article has only 700 words. This impression is strengthened by
menace-inducing sentences such as To the people -- that is a warning to be prepared for the worst.
The chronology and the focus on the situational context can be understood within the articles general
focus on the ambulance services operations, which shows in the following example:

All of its 15 vehicles and staff from across the city were dispatched to the bomb scene, behind
the compound of an elite security force along the Kabul River.

Mechanics got behind the wheel and clerks took on nursing duties, ferrying the wounded to the
citys hospitals for hours.

The doors of two ambulances came off the hinges because they were packed with too many
wounded, said Dr. Alem Asem, the ambulance services director.

Firstly, the intensifier all in the beginning is a typical tool of involvement. Secondly, the description
of the chain of operations creates an action-like atmosphere, and the succeeding quote offers a peek

14
into an insiders experiences. Together this level of detail strengthens again the impression of
infotainment. One interesting example with regard to the timeline that the article draws can be found
at the end of the article, where the chronology appears in a list-like form in the phrases By 4p.m.--
and By 7:30p.m.--. This could be seen either as repetition, which suggests strategies of
involvement, or alternatively it can be seen as a reminiscent of a log, which has the opposite effect.
In any case, these choices seem to mark a separation from the disinterested and factual ideals of
the press.

Although the description of the ambulance services operations is the main theme in the article, some
interesting points for analysis can also be found in the description of the political situation in
Afghanistan:

The assault has put more pressure on the dysfunctional coalition government, brokered by the
United States after the 2014 election ended in a stalemate. The infighting between two former
rivals, President Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, the chief executive, has created stagnation
on almost every front. Even as insurgents have increased their attacks, the government still
doesnt have a confirmed intelligence chief and minister of defense, because Mr. Ghani and Mr.
Abdullah cannot agree.

Firstly, brokered by the United States seems to promote the American presence in Afghan politics
while it lacks any contextualization that would show how the US is partly responsible for the situation.
Secondly, stalemate, infighting and cannot agree picture the situation as somewhat chaotic and attach
to it a certain indeterminacy, which again ignores the complex nature of the situation.

Lastly, some points can be made about transitivity structures in the article. As the first example we
shall look at the opening sentence of the article: Seven minutes after a truck bomb went off in the
Afghan capital on Tuesday, the first teams from Kabul Ambulance Service reached the scene of
devastation. The formulation bomb went off shifts the attention to the method of the attacks.
Similarly, --bombing which destroyed-- focuses on the effect of the attacks. Neither of the
examples thus assign agency directly to the attackers. While this is probably not an attempt to mitigate
the attack as the consequence of action, it can be thought to have a trivializing effect since it focuses
on the method of the attack instead of the people behind it.

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To conclude, the narrativization in the NYT article is constructed through similar means to the first
article. Again, evaluative language and techniques of involvement turn the attack to a dramatic chain
of events and thus tries to appeal to the reader. The representation of different parties was also
asymmetrical. In addition to this, the thematic focus and the detailed description portray the attack
more as action-like operations than as a tragic event that is part of a long conflict.

6. CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION

The aim of this study was to find out how the terrorist attack in Kabul is represented in two newspaper
articles, one that was published in the Washington Post and another that appeared in the New York
Times. We looked into some lexical features such as vocabulary choices and transitivity structures in
both articles, and found out that the representation of different parties is unbalanced in both
newspapers. The attackers were described as a uniform militant group while the other agents had a
more individual representation. Transitivity choices in WP generally portrayed the attackers as agents
and the state as a victim, while the choices in the NYT article focused more on the effect of the
attackers actions.

Both articles applied various techniques of involvement to make the text more appealing to the reader,
and the events are narrated in a very dramatized way, for instance through chronologization.
Narrativization thus turns tragic events into exciting news, and the focus on action itself tends to
exclude description of the attack as a tragic event in a long conflict. Finally, a certain dichotomy and
a promotion of the Western presence in the country can be seen in the articles, which again ignores
the complex nature of the situation.

After the analysis on the two articles, one question can be raised as to the role of the press in conflict
coverage. As we have shown, the articles describe the events in great detail. Also, the chronological
presentation of events in the articles in a way removes the distance between the reader and the events
in question. Based on these choices, it can thus be asked, how much is necessary for the reader to
know; how much of the information is there because of the role of the press as the spreader of
information, and how much is included mainly to make it more appealing and thus promote the article
for commercial purposes? This is surely not an easy question, as there are no strictly right or wrong
answers. In any case, our results show that the narrative and evaluative practices that can be observed
in the articles do not live up to the press ideals of being factual, disinterested, impersonal and

16
objective. Again, as the media plays a large role in forming peoples understanding of the world, it
should continue to be taken under scrutiny in the future as well.

17
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OKRENT, D. (2004). THE PUBLIC EDITOR; Is The New York Times a Liberal Newspaper?
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APPENDICES

Asia & Pacific

Taliban strikes in heart of Kabul in deadly attack on elite agency

By Tim Craig and and Sayed Salahuddin 19 April

KABUL The suicide blast tore open the gates of the compound. One worker inside saw a shower
of glass shards and jagged pieces of the explosives-rigged truck.

Then seconds later Tuesday as an ash-gray cloud rose over Kabul Taliban gunmen opened fire
on Afghanistans equivalent of the Secret Service. For three hours, a gun battle raged even as some
agents were trapped under collapsed walls and ceilings.

Just a week earlier, the Taliban vowed to escalate attacks as the Afghan weather warms.

The militants now appear to have followed through with the warnings in a shattering tally: at least 28
people killed, more than 325 injured and authorities left struggling over how Taliban attackers
outwitted security patrols to carry out one of the most devastating attacks in Kabul in years.

The target the main training ground for an Afghan intelligence unit tasked with protecting senior
officials represented a direct strike against the Western-aided government as it takes the lead role
in the fight against the Islamist militants.

The raid also was a message that the reach of Taliban fighters and their ability to stage major
coordinated attacks appears undimmed despite rifts within the militant groups ranks and pressures
from the rival Islamic State as it seeks to expand its influence in Afghanistan.

For leaders in Kabul, it may shatter for now any hope of reviving stalled peace talks with the Taliban,
and puts President Ashraf Ghani under growing pressure from rivals over his efforts to reach out to
the Islamist insurgent group.

The attack ended several weeks of relative calm in the Afghan capital. It began when a suicide bomber
detonated a truck packed with explosives next to the security compound, said Kabul police

20
spokesman Basir Mujahid. The blast was so powerful that it shattered windows and cracked building
facades up to two miles away.

After the explosion shredded part of the security compound, at least one gunman entered the
compound, touching off a three-hour gun battle less than a mile from the presidential palace and the
Defense Ministry in a densely populated part of the city.

One gunman was killed, said Sediq Sediqqi, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry. Full details about
the number of attackers and their tactics, however, remained unclear as the investigation unfolded.

No doubt there was a security vacuum, and that needs to be investigated. It is too early to comment
on that right now, he told reporters.

The Taliban claimed responsibility, even as the casualties were still being counted.

Ghani said the attack showed that insurgents cannot defeat Afghan forces in a face-to-face battle.

The Health Ministry said at least 327 people were wounded, many of them civilian passersby.
Mujahid, the police spokesman, said by phone that the death toll is between 28 and 30.

One worker at the intelligence agency, who goes by the single name Mehrabuddin, said he was resting
on a bed when the truck bomb exploded.

I rushed out of the room and was hit by debris, bricks, shrapnel and flying glass in the yard of the
compound, he said at Wazir Akbar Khan Hospital, where he was treated for injuries to his head and
stomach.

He said about 50 officers were studying in a room where the ceiling caved in from the explosion.

I do not know what happened to them, he said.

A truck of the International Committee of the Red Cross later brought medical assistance to the
hospital. Volunteers rushed to donate blood.

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The Taliban announced the start of its spring offensive on April 12. Fighting has since flared around
the northern city of Kunduz, Afghanistans fifth-largest city, but Kabul had remained relatively quiet.

Kunduz fell briefly to the Taliban in September. That marked the biggest setback to Ghanis
government since NATO-led forces ceased their combat operations in Afghanistan at the end of 2014.

The coming months are seen as a critical test of the Talibans strength and unity.

In last weeks announcement, the Taliban vowed to carry out large-scale attacks as the weather
warms.

Yet the group has been racked by internal splits after the public acknowledgment last year of the
death of its longtime leader, Mohammad Omar. Some factions favored exploring peace efforts with
the Afghan government. Others, though, called for bolstered offensives to regain territory and counter
moves by the Islamic State to find new footholds in Afghanistan.

At the same time, the U.S.-led coalition withdrew all but 13,500 troops last year, leaving the Afghan
military at the forefront of the fight against the militants. The Taliban, in turn, has made steady gains
in southern, eastern and northern Afghanistan.

Tuesdays attack in Kabul was a stinging blow to Afghan forces amid efforts to enhance security in
the capital after an earlier string of high-profile Taliban incursions. In November 2014, militants
carried out back-to-back suicide blasts, including one in a Kabul district that houses many embassies
and foreign compounds.

In a statement Tuesday, the United Nations called on the Taliban to stop attacks in civilian areas.
The use of high explosives in civilian populated areas, in circumstances almost certain to cause
immense suffering to civilians, may amount to war crimes, said Tadamichi Yamamoto, the secretary
generals deputy special representative for Afghanistan.

The U.S. militarys top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John W. Nicholson, portrayed the attack as
a sign of the insurgents weakness.

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Todays attack shows the insurgents are unable to meet Afghan forces on the battlefield and must
resort to these terrorist attacks, Nicholson said in a statement.

Daniela Deane in London and Brian Murphy in Washington contributed to this report.

Tim Craig is The Posts bureau chief in Pakistan. He has also covered conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan
and within the District of Columbia government. Follow @timcraigpost

Available on <https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/kabul-rocked-by-deadly-explosion-
followed-by-gunfire/2016/04/19/3e71c794-05f2-11e6-bdcb-0133da18418d_story.html?tid=a_inl>.

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ASIA PACIFIC

15 Ambulances and Hundreds of Victims: Kabul Attack Gives Service Grim Test
By MUJIB MASHAL and JAWAD SUKHANYAR APRIL 20, 2016

KABUL, Afghanistan Seven minutes after a truck bomb went off in the Afghan capital on
Tuesday, the first teams from Kabul Ambulance Service reached the scene of devastation.
Right away, they knew the attack was bad, but not that it would turn out to be the deadliest in
the Afghan capital in 15 years of war.
The teams radioed in the extent of the carnage, activating the small departments contingency
plan: All of its 15 vehicles and staff from across the city were dispatched to the bomb scene, behind
the compound of an elite security force along the Kabul River.
Mechanics got behind the wheel and clerks took on nursing duties, ferrying the wounded to the
citys hospitals for hours.
The doors of two ambulances came off the hinges because they were packed with too many
wounded, said Dr. Alem Asem, the ambulance services director.
On Wednesday, the Afghan government confirmed that the death toll was double what was
initially reported. Sediq Sediqqi, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said that 64 people had been
killed and 347 were wounded.
The Afghan intelligence agency blamed the Haqqani network, a lethal arm of the Taliban behind
some of the most complex urban attacks, for the bombing.
But questions have been raised about how the insurgents managed to take large amounts of
explosives into the city, detonating a bomb behind the walls of an elite force that is supposed to
protect the governments top officials.
On Wednesday, the police had cordoned off the site of the bombing, which destroyed a large
parking lot and the windows of Kabuls largest mosque, as well as homes and shops. Not even military
personnel were allowed through.
The assault has put more pressure on the dysfunctional coalition government, brokered by the
United States after the 2014 election ended in a stalemate. The infighting between two former rivals,
President Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, the chief executive, has created stagnation on almost
every front. Even as insurgents have increased their attacks, the government still doesnt have a
confirmed intelligence chief and minister of defense, because Mr. Ghani and Mr. Abdullah cannot
agree.
This attack isnt the first, and it wont be the last one either, said Mohammad Omar Azizi, the
Kabul provincial head for the Afghan spy agency, the National Directorate of Security.

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 To the 108 people who work for Kabul Ambulance Service, that is a warning to be prepared for
the worst.
The department, created by the Norwegian Red Cross in 2003, was transferred to the Afghan
government a few years ago. It runs a 24-hour call center, coordinating with five small substations
across the crowded capital. On Tuesday, the entire Kabul Ambulance Service staff that was present
rushed to the scene of the explosion, which occurred before 9 a.m., except for Dr. Asem, the director,
as well as two guards and two workers who staffed the call center.
Even as the firefight between the security forces and militants holed up in the compound
continued after the explosion, the service rushed victims as many as 12 in a vehicle meant for one
or two to city hospitals.
I swear bullets were landing, and we had to duck and rush a body to the ambulance, said
Muhammed Farooq, who has been a mechanic with the service for eight years. The cars were full
of blood.
Altogether, Kabul Ambulance Service made 83 trips. (Police ambulances also arrived at the
scene, underscoring the gravity of the situation.) The last of the wounded was taken to a hospital at 2
p.m., but several ambulances remained at the site until 4 p.m. in case more victims were pulled from
the rubble.
For most of the day, routine callers from across the city were told no ambulances were
available, Dr. Asem said.
By 4 p.m., all 15 ambulances were back at headquarters, and staff members were able to eat
lunch, a humble bowl of rice topped with potato and chickpea curry. The ambulances were scrubbed
down, the first-aid kits restocked, the fuel tanks refilled.
By 7:30 p.m., the vehicles returned to their substations across the city, ready for another day.

Follow Mujib Mashal on Twitter @MujMash

Ahmad Shakib contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on April 21, 2016, on page A4 of the New York edition with
the headline: Deadly Blast in Kabul Sternly Tests Responders.
2016 The New York Times Company

Available on <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/21/world/asia/kabul-explosion-afghanistan.html?ri
bbon-ad-idx=4&src=recg&mabReward=A6&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&ac

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tion=click&contentCollection=Recommended&pgtype=article>.

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