TELEVISION NEWS AND THE VISUAL FRAMING OF WAR By Jennifer Ogg Anderson Dissertation ...

185 Pages·2011·1.55 MB·English

PRIME TIME POLITICS: TELEVISION NEWS

AND THE VISUAL FRAMING OF WAR

By

Jennifer Ogg Anderson

Dissertation

Submitted to the Faculty of the

Graduate School of Vanderbilt University

in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

in

Political Science

May, 2011

Nashville, Tennessee

Approved:

Professor John G. Geer

Professor Cindy D. Kam

Professor Marc J. Hetherington

Professor Bruce I. Oppenheimer

Professor Vanessa Beasley
Copyright © 2011 by Jennifer Ogg Anderson
All Rights Reserved
To Kevin, with a multitude of thanks for your love, patience and steadfast support

iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This dissertation would not have been possible without the financial support of
the Vanderbilt Political Science Department and a Doctoral Dissertation Improvement
Grant from the National Science Foundation. I am also grateful to the Center for the
Study of Democratic Institutions for a summer fellowship that provided me with focused
time to devote to this work, and to the Research on Individuals, Politics and Society lab
of the Vanderbilt political science department for allowing me to conduct my own
research study.
I am indebted to everyone who has provided support throughout the duration of
this project. I am especially grateful to the co-chairs of my dissertation committee. I
would like to thank Dr. John Geer for his excellent advice, patience and belief in this
project from its inception. The dissertation would not have come to fruition without his
leadership, and his professional and personal guidance taught me so much about political
science research and life in general. Graduate school would not have been nearly as
valuable to me without him for more reasons than I can list here. I would also like to
thank Dr. Cindy Kam for her ideal mix of candor, critique and personal encouragement.
Her guidance improved the project many times over, and I am consistently amazed at and
appreciative of her efficiency and attentiveness. Thank you to the other members of my
dissertation committee, Dr. Marc Hetherington, Dr. Bruce Oppenheimer and Dr. Vanessa
Beasley, who have each given me invaluable feedback and support.
I would also like to express gratitude to members of my family. They have
traveled this journey with me step by step. I would like to thank my parents for their love
iv
and constant faith in me. Most importantly, I would like to thank my infinitely
supportive husband, Kevin, and my son, Boone, who provide endless motivation and
love.

v
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
DEDICATION………………………………………………………………………..…..iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………………iv
LIST OF TABLES………………………………………………………………………..ix
LIST OF FIGURES…………………………………………………………………….…x
Chapter
I. WHY VISUALS MATTER………………………………………………..….1
Importance of televised images of violence………………………………..….5
Why television images deserve further study…………………………………9
Previous means of studying images………………………………………….11
Plan of the dissertation……………………………………………………….12

II. NETWORK TELEVISION NEWS AND IMAGES OF WAR: A
COMPARISON OF VIETNAM AND IRAQ……………………………….16

Expectations of how Vietnam and Iraq War coverage should differ………..18
Violent images in television news coverage of war: method and results…...20
Data……………………………………………………………………....24
Motivation for analyses……………………………………………….….25
Measures of violence…………………………………………………….26
Personal injury……………………………………………………...……27
Death……………………………………………………………………..28
Explicitness…………………………………………………………...….32
Graphicness……………………………………………………..………..33
Length of violence……………………………………………………….34
Perpetrators and targets of violence……………………………………...36
Frame of violence…………………………………………………….….38
Evaluative tone…………………………………………………………...39
Exposure to television news stories of war: Vietnam versus Iraq………40
Conclusion…………………………………………………………………...45

III. CONTRASTING VISUALS IN FOX NEWS AND CNN COVERAGE OF
THE IRAQ WAR………………………………………………………..…..47

Partisanship and cable news polarization………………………………...….51
vi
Research design……………………………………………………………..54
Results……………………………………………………………………….56
Coverage of war……………………………………………………..…..56
Story length……………………………………………………………...58
Im ages……………………………………………………………………62
Perpetrators and targets of violence……………………………………...65
Tone……………………………………………………………………...66
Frame of violence………………………………………………………..69
Reporting of casualties………………………………………..………….71
Discussion……………………………………………………………………71

IV. EFFECTS OF TELEVISED IMAGES OF VIOLENCE ON PUBLIC
SUPPORT FOR WAR………………………………………………...……..75

News coverage and determinants of public support for war…………………76
Hypotheses…………………………………………………………………...79
Methods and Data…………………………………………………………....83
Description of Data…………………………………………………………..91
Findings……………………………………………………………………...92
Discussion…………………………………………………………………...99

V. TELEVISION NEWS AND PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR WAR: AN
EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF THE EFFECTS OF IMAGES..101

Determinants of public support for war among individuals………………..102
Research design and expectations………………………………………..…104
Experimental study……………………………………………………..…..105
Treatm ent manipulation………………………………………...………106
Justified frame…………………………………………………………..107
Unjustified frame……………………………………………………….108
Dependent variables………………………………………………………...110
Explanatory variables…………………………………………………….…113
Results………………………………………………………………………115
Effects of framing……………………………………………………....121
Effects of violent images…………………………………………...…..122
Conclusion………………………………………………………………….122

VI. CONCLUSIONS………………………………………………………..…124
Contributions…………………………………………………………...…..127
Implications…………………………………………………………………130
Implications for understanding news media……………………………130
Implications for understanding the responsiveness and accountability of
political leaders…………………………………………………………133
Final thoughts……………………………………………………………....136

vii
Appendix
A. CHAPTER II APPENDIX…………………………………………………138
B. CHAPTER III APPENDIX…………………………………………………141
C. CHAPTER V APPENDIX………………………………………………….145
REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………164

viii
LIST OF TABLES

Table Page
1 Summary of violent war im ages in television news coverage of Vietnam and
Iraq…………………………………………………………...…………...….26

2 Average length of network television news stories of war (in seconds)…….42

3 Partisanship of cable news consumers……...……………………………..…52

4 Average length of stories about the Iraq War: CNN versus Fox News….…59

5 Content analyses of violence in Fox News and CNN coverage of the Iraq War,
sample of evening news broadcasts 2004-2007…………………….……..…63

6 Violent war images in television news coverage of Iraq: Network news versus
cable news……………………….………………………………………..….65

7 Content analyses of non-vis uals in Fox News and C NN coverage of the Iraq
War, sample of evening news broadcasts 2004-2007……………………….68

8 Support trends available for the Iraq War……..………………………...…..86

9 Major events in the Iraq War, 2003-2007………………………………....…90

10 Summary statistics, opinion poll as unit of analysis……………………....…93

11 Correlations between polling data and variables from content analysis.….....95

12 Predicting support for U.S. involvement in Iraq……………………………..98

13 Differences of means of key variables………………………………..…….114

14 Predicting support for war……………………………………………….....120

ix
LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page
1. Images of Violence on March 31, 2004: Killing of American Contractors,
Evening News Program Images. Most severe image from Fox News…………...2

2. Images of Violence on March 31, 2004: Killing of American Contractors,
Evening News Program Images. Most severe image from CNN (1)……….…….3

3. Images of Violence on March 31, 2004: Killing of American Contractors,
Evening News Program Images. Most severe image from CNN (2)……………..3

4. Human Reactions to Violence……………………………………………….……8

5. Images of personal injury in television news coverage of war…………………..28
6. U.S. military deaths: Vietnam and Iraq…………………………………………29
7. Reported U.S. military casualties: Vietnam and Iraq…………………………...30
8. Percentage of lead news stories reporting war casualties……………………..…30
9. Percentage of television news stories showing images of death…………………31
10. Explicitness of television news images of war………………………………..…33
11. Graphic violence in television news images of war…………………………..….34
12. Histograms of Length of Network Television News Stories of War
(in seconds)………………………………………………………………...…….44

13. The public’s perception of CNN and Fox News ideology………………...…….48

14. Cable News Decision Making……………………………………………...……57

15. Network News shows more moderate presentations of Perpetrators and Targets of
Violence than Fox News and CNN………………………………………………67

16. Percentage of citizens agreeing it was a mistake to send troops to war: Vietnam
versus Iraq………………………………………………………………………..77

17. Public support for the Iraq War over time……………………………………….84
x