Reminder of a threat
“One aspect if the nation itself is that its discourse survives only to extent that it is perceived to be under threat. It is at this point that enemies real and imaginary, need to be marshalled in order to remind the insiders of the national group what exactly is at stake.” (Conboy, 2007, p168)
Terror acts have been a very sensitive subject ever since the 9/11 attacks in US, then the damage was unspeakable and through time other terror attacks only added more and more stress and panic to the world.
Recently the city of love Paris was targeted by coordinated attacks leaving over hundred people dead. Such events are unavoidable in the media; they are brutal and hard-hitting.
We are used to tabloids blowing things up to make them more scandalous, more shocking, more out of the ordinary. So what happens when the actual events tick all those boxes without the need to add anything more to the mix?
The events and images are coming in through to the news organizations equipping them with all the tools they need to present breaking news to the public.
When an attack like this happens tabloids because of their nature use all the standard techniques as they do for scandal stories, the only difference is that the information presented is the mirror image of reality, which looks a lot like a horror story.
The front page of ‘The Daily Mirror’ is a perfect example, with the use of picture from the scene with covered bodies as the main image and other smaller images with a wounded victim and an armed officer, paint a story of the effect and state of the city that has been encountered - paralysis.
The words like “massacre” and a picture of a terrorist extremist holding a knife gives a face to the threat. All of it together brings the danger and threats closer to home; it all reminds the nation and the world that the threat is real and that there is a lot to loose.