The death of bin Laden: How Russian and U.S. media frame counterterrorism

• Framing of bin Laden's death varied drastically between U.S. and Russian media.
• New emerging frames included humanizing terrorists, resilience, and secrecy.
• Newspapers used a simplistic and ethnocentric approach to report on counterterrorism.
• The study offers practical implications for governments in communicating about terrorism.

This study explored how Russian and U.S. newspapers covered the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011 through the lens of framing theory. Results reflect significant disparity in how media in different countries covered the same event, suggesting that terrorism events were framed as national concerns rather than global issues, thus potentially limiting governments and the media from building a shared understanding with international audiences. The findings also indicate that more robust media relations efforts are needed to counter simplistic media counterterrorism frames. Finally, the study identified new frames for counterterrorism including secrecy and humanizing terrorists. These new frames suggest the need to expand the framing literature to provide a better understanding of how the media cover counterterrorism, which may impact the U.S. government's public diplomacy and counterterrorism efforts.