Media Analysis Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Media Analysis - Research Paper ExampleThis essay aims to provide a timeline of important events and to describe and analyze three media artifacts that covered the Beslan school warrantor crisis 1) Peter Baker and Susan B. Glasser (2004)s newspaper article that has an online version 2) 48 Hours of CBS intelligence activity video clip of the negotiation and release of some hostages and 3) David Satter (2009)s commentary, five years after the hostage incident. These media artifacts demonstrate some battles in how they labeled the hostage takers and similarities in their emotional rendering of the events, while one of them underscored that the blame of the crisis mishandling should be placed solely on the shoulders of the Russian government. Timeline of the Beslan Hostage Crisis On September 1, 2004, at around 530 am, a group of hostage takers seized Beslans School No. 1 and took hundreds of students, teachers, and parents as hostages. They exchanged fires with the police during that morning. Baker and Glasser (2004) expound the hostage takers as guerillas or fighters, from Chechnya and other nations, while the Russian government called them terrorists (p.1). ... On Friday, September 3, 2004, hostage takers allowed emergencies ministry workers to approach the dead bodies of some hostages who were lying in front of the school. At the same time, two hours before the bloody battle between the guerillas and the governments troops, the president of North Ossetia, Alexander Dzasokhov, and another political leader called Chechen leader Akhmed Zakayev in London. Zakayev, who stood for Aslan Maskhadov, the Chechen separatist leader and deposed president, said that they wanted Maskhadovs help in negotiating with the guerillas because their demands were related to the Chechnya conflict (Baker & Glasser, 2004, p.2). Maskhadov was prepared to lose the rebels for the release of the hostages and the discussion of the latters demands. However, at around 10 to 1030 AM, two e xplosions were heard inside the school. The news differed on what caused these explosions, although the net result was the collapse of the gyms roof, where most of the hostages were, the running away of hostages as shootings ensued, the attack of the Special Forces on the gym, and the subsequent battle between the soldiers and the rebels (Baker & Glasser, 2004, p.2 The Guardian, 2004). Fighting occurred until evening, but ended at around 8 PM. On the dawn of September 4, President Vladimir Putin visited some of the wounded victims (The Guardian, 2004). Analysis of Media Coverage The starting line media artifact to be analyzed is the print news article (available online) written by Baker and Glasser (2004). The media sample matters because it provides vital information about the hostage crisis and it shows the difference between news language and political language. In terms of sources, Baker and Glasser (2004) relied on themselves as eyewitnesses, law