Public Opinion & Drones: The Formation of American Public Opinion Regarding the Use of Drones as a U.S. Foreign Policy Tool

Abstract

Based on a rigorous content analysis of major media coverage about the use of drones, and a comparison of the findings with available public opinion data, this paper expands current knowledge on the relationship between public opinion and the use of armed, unmanned aerial vehicles as a U.S. foreign policy tool. The discussion, first, focuses on what we know about public opinion regarding the use of unmanned aerial vehicles; and second, rooted in mainstream theories of political communication, this research examines the forces that determine public perception of drones. Indeed, the paper examines one foreign policy issue – the use of UAVs and US-led drone strikes abroad – and in relation to that issue, one key question: What forces cause the US public to think the way it does with respect to the drone strike issue?Inspired by agenda-setting and framing theories, the aim of the content analysis is to answer the following three questions: 1) how often do the media cover issues related to drones; 2) who/what are the main sources of the media message? 3) how is the use of drones framed by political elites and in media reports? Democratic theory stresses the importance of informed, public debates, as well as representation vis-a-vis the relationship between public opinion and public policy outcomes. As such, this research is partly aimed at contributing to a public discussion regarding the use or armed drones, a task accomplished by providing a new data set with respect to media content and elite opinion about this often-controversial tactic.