An analysis of British and American newspaper reports on the Paris and Brussels attacks

Details

Supervisors

Latre, Guido

Faculty

Faculté de philosophie, arts et lettres

Degree label

Master [120] en langues et lettres modernes, orientation générale

Abstract

The 22nd March 2016 will remain forever engraved in the memory of the Belgians. Two bombs tore through the departure terminal at Brussels airport and another explosion struck Maelbeek’s metro station, killing 34 people and leaving around 300 injured. These tragic events came about four months after the Paris attacks, on November 13, in 2015. As the investigation revealed that some of the terrorists were Belgian citizens, the country was quickly made responsible. François Hollande, the then French President, even declared: « Les actes de guerre de vendredi ont été décidés, planifiés en Syrie, ils ont été organisés en Belgique, perpétrés sur notre sol avec des complicités françaises ». Accused of laxity and neglect, Belgium’s reputation quickly degraded into “one of the world’s main breeding grounds of violent Islamist extremists”. The purpose of this dissertation is to study the way in which Belgium is portrayed in British and American newspapers in the wake of the Paris and Brussels attacks. In other words, the aim of this study is twofold: firstly, to identify their point of view regarding the Belgian government’s ability to deal with the current terrorist crisis, and secondly, to determine whether the image portrayed is an accurate reflection of reality.