Ottosen, Rune.  (1995) Enemy Images and the Journalistic Process.  Journal of Peace Research, 32(1), 97-112.

Ottosen content analyzes 915 articles from three Norwegian daily newspapers to understand how the Soviet Union is portrayed in four international conflicts; the 1980 Iraqi invasion of Iran, the 1990 Gulf War, the 1981 and 1989 uprisings in Poland and Romania.  Norway considers the Soviet Union a traditional enemy according to Ottosen, however his study demonstrates that the newspapers decreasingly portray the country as an enemy over the ten year period of analysis.  He used the variables of appearance of enemy images, genre, and who is defined as the enemy to categorize the articles. 

His hypotheses state that; in Poland, there will be a clear enemy image drawn of the Soviet Union; in Romania, there will be no enemy image; in Iran, the Soviet Union will be the prevailing enemy image; and in Iraq, Islam will be the main enemy image.  He found enemy images in 217 articles with dispositional images in 144.  There were enemy images in 76% of editorials and 20% of the news articles.  He confirmed all his hypotheses except the one concerning Islam.  Rather than demonize an entire religion, the press focused on Saddam Hussein as the enemy in their coverage.

Ottosen’s article is most important because it gives me a clear method to code enemy images in news media coverage.  Enemy images are important to understand in conflict reporting because if one side is demonized then there is a clear bias in the reporting.  It is also interesting to note that only 20 percent of the news articles presented an enemy image.  Ottosen’s article demonstrates that the majority of conflict reporting does not portray one side as the enemy.

Abstract by Meghan Maskery

Missouri School of Journalism

MA ‘07