Framing the Bicyclist: A Qualitative Study of Media Discourse about Fatal Bicycle Crashes

Abstract

This research examines the linguistic choices that frame relationships between bicyclists and other parties involved in fatal crash events. Textual data were collected from media reports of all bicyclist traffic fatalities that occurred from January 2009 through June 2018 in Hillsborough County, Florida, which has a disproportionately high number of bicyclist deaths compared with other areas of the U.S. The media reports were coded with a qualitative data analysis software and analyzed using critical discourse analysis (CDA), a rigorous qualitative method used to analyze oral and written communication developed by Fairclough. Through CDA, the study examines how linguistic choices produce meaning and reinforce the “common sense” or “taken-for-granted” lexicon of transportation. Results show the majority of news reports were episodic rather than thematic, focusing on the traffic event and the parties involved in the crash, particularly the bicyclist. Vocabulary, grammatical structure, and narrative framing of news reports largely functioned to remove blame from the motorist and to highlight the bicyclist’s actions. These linguistic strategies reflect the assumption that responsibility for safety rests on the bicyclist and detracts attention from potential social policy reform that would lead to fewer bicyclist fatalities. A minority of articles written with thematic frames focused on broader issues such as social capital, safety education, and advocacy. This interdisciplinary study is a unique contribution to transportation literature, employing a methodology typically reserved for communication scholars and linguists.

Active Transportation Policies: Do Media Narratives Matter?

“…Episodic framing is event-oriented and “depicts public issues in terms of concrete instances” (Iyengar, 1991, p.14) such as bicycle crashes. It seeks to place more emphasis on the individual instead of shifting the focus to a societal issue (Scheffels et al, 2019). Thematic frames place issues “in some general or abstract context and takes the form of a ‘takeout’ or a ‘backgrounder’ report directed at general outcomes or conditions” (Iyengar, 1991, p.14).…”

“…The language used by news reporters portray how they view the victim or villain. For example, an accident might refer to an event that places no fault on either party involved, compared to one that specifies that there was an instigator to the crash and someone is to blame (Scheffels et al, 2019). Passive sentences dehumanize the character in a way to detract readers from humanizing the villain - this is considered object-based language and shifts the blame from the object to the subject (Goddard et al, 2019).…”

“…Shanahan et al (2008) examined media's role and found differences between the national and local media narratives and found that the media acts as a contributor in the policy change process. Policy change research found the influence of media coverage on policy decisions related to climate change (Brulle, 2018) and government budgeting (Jacoby, 2000), however, there is a gap in the literature regarding specific language used in the media to disseminate news about fatality crashes (Scheffels et al, 2019). How news media narratives influence attitudes regarding political issues is also an understudied topic in the literature (Jones & McBeth, 2010;Shen et al, 2014).…”

“…The media plays a large role in disseminating information about pedestrian and bicycle crashes and in influencing public opinion and eventually policy makers’ actions (Goddard et al, 2019; Ralph et al, 2019; Scheffels et al, 2019). The media can impact policy decisions because this primary information source could impact community attitudes (Rimano et al, 2015).…”