ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes how South Carolina newspapers covered the media, particularly the broadcast media, represented in Union during the trial and pretrial period of the case. Most readers and viewers have developed a set of media images, or beliefs and attitudes about the media based on their use of it. In the newspaper coverage of the Susan Smith trial, the focus on the media presence at the trial affected the public's view of what was important and what they should pay attention to. Media events studies tend to 'view the public realm as capable of alteration and replenishment through rhetoric and symbols'. The frame analysis empirically tracked key words, phrases and themes that served to focus attention on journalists, media celebrities, the technology of news coverage, and the media itself as an integral part of the Susan Smith trial and overall story that was presented to the reading public.
