Talk About Terrorism and the Media: Communicating With the Conduit Metaphor

Abstract

The conduit metaphor is the primary expression of linguistic communication in our culture (M. J. Reddy, 1979). It structures theories and frameworks based on the “Code Model” (from C. E. Shannon & W. Weaver, 1949) such as the Social Amplification of Risk Framework (R. E. Kasperson et al., 1988; N. Pidgeon, R. E. Kasperson, & P. Slovic, [Eds] 2003). The conduit metaphor structure objectifies source, receiver, and messages, which are talked of as “objects” or “substances” passed along a conduit to a receiver to be recovered. Metaphor analysis of 6 semistructured interviews with laypersons about terrorism and the media showed how the conduit metaphor structures a subjective process of reification, quantification, comparison, and judgment. This interpretation suggests that the demands of the conduit metaphor structure for the transferred message to be “invariant” and “pure” can influence relationships of trust and blame between media and public. The authors suggest that a notion of interactive communication between the media and the public should take into consideration the power of the conduit metaphor structure to shape understandings.