Television coverage of Operation Iraqi Freedom

Abstract

Extant research on the media coverage of the Gulf War demonstrates that the media tend to reflect the political ideologies of the mother nation, actively participating in the generation of political support for national policy. A large number of studies on news reports of the Gulf War pointed out that the media constructed the war as a military operation, highlighting military strategies and the triumph of technology, whereas the casualties of the war were omitted. More than a decade after the Gulf War, the United States and Iraq engaged again as key stakeholders in Operation Iraqi Freedom. This article examines the frames present in the media coverage of Operation Iraqi Freedom based on qualitative and quantitative analyses of the war coverage on CNN and Fox. Hypotheses also are tested regarding the favorability of specific frames toward key stakeholders.