News media word choice after Abu Ghraib normalized acceptance of torture

Evidence

It turns out the news media itself may have aided this growing acceptance of torture, or at least of some of its manifestations. Brigitte L. Nacos and Oscar Torres-Reyna write, “An ironic consequence of the Abu Ghraib revelations was the drastic decline of the use of the T-word in pertinent news accounts. Instead, anchors, correspondents, and reporters themselves preferred terms like ‘abuse,’ ‘alleged abuse,’ ‘mistreatment,’ and ‘wrongdoing.’” Government officials and journalists came to distinguish between “hard-core torture,” “torture lite,” and “coercion.” Nacos and Torres- Reyna note that after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, “Americans were less inclined to agree with the statement that torture is “never justified” as a means to force suspected terrorists to reveal important information. By December 2004, more than seven months after the Abu Ghraib story broke, only 27 percent of the public rejected the torture of terrorist suspects categorically, while 69 percent found it justified to varying degrees.” The operating cultural logic shifted from one in which torture was considered illegal and morally wrong to an exceptionalist logic in which torture was considered wrong but necessary and effective in moments of national crisis. — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 301 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Media euphemism and elite framing shifted public acceptance of torture after Abu Ghraib. — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race…, 301; Dehumanizing jargon like ‘interrogation subject’ conditions audiences to accept torture — Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks, 295; Liberal-rationalist rhetoric can normalize torture as a managed procedure — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 371 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Media euphemism and elite framing shifted public acceptance of torture after Abu Ghraib. #corroborates (0.97) — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 301