Media Framing Example: BP and the Blame for Deepwater Horizon Oil

Aug 2, 2010
Marc Latham

A Cloud Hangs Over BP's Future - Marc Latham

When the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded it was a disaster for everyone and everything involved. But two months later the national blame frame dominated.

When the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in April it not only killed eleven workers, but also caused the USA's worst oil spill disaster. The reverberations are still continuing four months later, and the environment is still suffering, as its main operators, BP, is still trying to permanently contain the problem.

For the first couple of months the main media framing of the event in the UK was all about BP's efforts to contain the leak and the environmental damage. But then American President, Barack Obama, was heard referring to the company as its old name, British Petroleum, and this was seen by some in the British media as a deliberate spinning ploy by the President to offload blame from himself and his administration and over the Atlantic to Britain. This article provides examples of how a natural disaster for all concerned turned into a transatlantic blame game for a couple of weeks in the British media.

American Framing of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster

At the beginning of May the British media focused its framing of the Deepwater Horizon disaster around attempts to stop the oil leak, and the environmental damage being done to the surrounding area.

However, when attempts to contain the leak continued to fail, the American government came under increasing pressure from the nation, and especially those living along the Gulf of Mexico coastline.

By the end of the month this had seemed to pressurise American government politicians and officials into referring to the company with the majority stake in the Deepwater Horizon oil rig as British Petroleum rather than BP.

The British Reaction to the American Framing of the Deepwater Horizon Crisis

BP had been known under that name since 1998, so when American politicians and officials started calling it by its old name, British Petroleum, it alerted British politicians and journalists to a possible attempt by the American administration to offload the blame across the Atlantic.

By the end of the month the dominant framing in the British media was all about whether the American government was trying to blame Britain for the crisis, and what effect it was having on the BP shares and shareholders.

Stephen Glover, in the August 02, 2010 Mail Online article, "Barack Obama's anti-British prejudice helps neither BP nor an alliance that has served the world well for 100 years" was typical of the British retaliation as he accused the American government of double standards; pointing out that: "These are different times, of course, but when the Exxon Valdez oil tanker sank off Alaska in 1989, its American owners, Exxon, were not treated like criminals by the U.S. government."

Other British writers and politicians did defend President Obama and his administration, and the debate continued for a couple of weeks. The environmental and human costs of the crisis were largely forgotten during that time, as the blame frame took precedence.