Newspaper Frames of Plane Crashes and Travel Decision of Experienced and Prospective Air Travelers

Abstract

Journalism and the transportation sector have a close relationship. We explored this relationship with particular attention to how newspapers frame plane crashes and the impact of such frames on the travel decision of experienced and prospective air travelers through the airways. We combined content analysis and a pre-test/post-test experimental design to implement the study.  We focused on four different plane crashes namely October 22, 2005 Bellview plane crash, December 10 Sosoliso plane crash, June 3, 2012 Dana plane and the March 10, 2019 Ethiopian plane crash.  We found that newspaper mainly use the horror frame in reporting plane crashes. However, the frame changed to sympathy frame in the last four days of the seven days of the plane crashes studied. We also found that newspaper frames significantly influence the travel decision of prospective air travelers but not their experienced counterparts. The implications of these results on social responsibility and framing theories have been explored.