Framing of the PS752 Plane Crash on the Websites of the World’s News TV Channels

Air accidents are always important to the media and public opinion, but during international political conflicts, the importance of these events increases. The crash of the Ukrainian PS 752 aircraft on 8 January 2020, because of its connection to the Iran-US tensions, became the top news headline of the world. Even now that more than two years have passed since the event, the media tries to steer public opinion in their own desired direction, by producing content about the air crash and its victims, reflecting the reactions of the countries involved and the world powers, and linking it to other issues related to Iran, such as the nuclear issue, human rights, and civil protests. Therefore, to understand national and international public opinion, and to predict the course of events, it’s appropriate to study the news coverage of the incident in the world's leading media, including 24-hour television news channels, which are the primary sources of news for the general public. Using the framework analysis methodology, this study examines the images that these media present to their audience about the PS752 incident, in different stages. Therefore, the researchers collected all the news of the incident, published on the websites of BBC Persian, BBC World, IRINN, Iran International, Russia Today, CNN, Fox News, and Euro News, from January 8 to 18, 2020. Finally, 663 news items were collected and the headlines and leads of this 663 data were analyzed. Using pre-existing and new frameworks, this study shows which aspects of the incident were highlighted by any of the mentioned media and based on this data, it compares these media and their policies. The results of this analysis can be summarized as follows: 1. Following the announcement of the missile strike, the level of attention to the incident increased in most of these networks, despite the differences in the patterns of attention; 2. Three approaches based on highlighting, conservatism, and marginalization were identified in framing the news of the incident in the studied media.