The paper challenges the claim that an increasingly global media is creating a homogenisation of political
discourses at the international level. In particular, it explores the extent to which the U.S. government managed
to affect global perceptions of the War On Terrorism through the media in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11
events.
The research starts from the consideration that the U.S. government created, through the repetition of consistent
messages, a very specific interpretation of the 9/11 events (a War On Terrorism frame) and attempted to export
it globally in order to support its own foreign policy objectives. The analysis then focuses on the comparison
between the War On Terrorism frame as delivered by the U.S. government and its reproduction within both the
political and media discourses in a range of local cases at the international level. They include the U.S., France,
Italy and Pakistan.
The research questions current literature on globalisation by drawing on political communications’ framing
theory. More specifically, it suggests first that there is no evidence of an on-going globalisation of either political
or media discourses; secondly that the local nation-state level plays a key role in understanding the mechanisms
of frames’ spreading at the global level; and thirdly that national culture is a major determinant in defining
local political and media discourses’ contents, even in presence of a strong persuasion attempt by a powerful
international actor such as the U.S. government
