The authors analyzed group membership of violent agents and types of violence in front-page photographs from 21 years of The New York Times. Using a trimodal definition of media violence, they confirmed the hypothesis that non-U.S. agents are represented as more explicitly violent than U.S. agents, and that the latter are associated with disguised modes of violence more often than the former. The recurring image of non-U.S. violence is that of order brutally ruptured or enforced. By contrast, images of U.S. violence are less alarming and suggest order without cruelty. The study showed how violent imagery is associated with in-group and out-group status stratification.