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