Party Politics and Public Perspectives:
Pre-Invasion Media Coverage and Political Agendas

David J. Park — Xavier University of Louisiana
Atsushi Tajima —  University of Wisconsin
Seungahn Nah — Mass Communication Research Center
Sandra L. Nichols

 News media, an extremely important institution in any democracy, are traditionally considered providers of diverse perspectives and voices to the general public.  A healthy media and democracy exhibit a wide range of differing perspectives and opinions in order to enable the public with the ability to think for itself and guide its political appointees.  Nonetheless, news media in relation to other institutions, especially political institutions, often heavily rely on “politically elite” news sources by focusing on presidents, governments, members of Congress and military figures (Gans, 1979; Roscho, 1975; Sigal, 1973).  In other words, the “modus operandi” of media coverage of politics tends to be structured around official agencies and organizations, resulting in a bias toward politically elite news sources.

This should come as no surprise given that governments and elites often set agendas.  Indeed, news media often have little choice but to lean to government and political elites for information, especially during conflicts like war.  Given this orientation, news media become “agents of power” because as mediators and distributors of information generated from the structures of power, media news frames often parallel government and administration policies ,, 1995).  If news media are not concerned about alternative news sources such as citizens’ voices and other diverse viewpoints, the media’s role in a democratic society becomes questioned, especially if the majority of the information is tilted toward one perspective.

This article examines these issues by focusing on one of the most important influences affecting our perceptions of the world.  By examining the power relations between the political establishment and the agenda setting media, one can begin to understand the persuasive techniques and filtering processes that ultimately create “news” and “reality.”  When information is not checked to be accurate and if persuasive techniques are not identified by the news, then the media have failed their role in a democracy.  In addition, if the media rely on official sources and leave out public perspectives from a diverse range of sources due to their news gathering procedures, then the media have again failed their role in a democracy.

Given the importance of diverse voices for the public sphere (Habermas, 1962,, 1989), this study focuses on sources in news media and their relationship to a democratic media system.  This paper, in the tradition of previous studies related to the importance of sources in news media, examines how U.S. mainstream newspapers utilized news sources during a Congressional debate on whether or not the U.S. House and Senate should authorize military action in Iraq.  It is hoped this study will add to theory on media and democracy, aid in the understanding of how sources presented in media coverage interact within this relationship, as well as shed light on some of the influences that affected public opinion in favor of military action in Iraq.

Theory on Media and Democracy

Theory on media and democracy covers a broad range of influences, which affect the nature of media systems.  Indeed, it is important to examine media systems because one cannot discuss the democratization of society without discussing the democratization of its communication systems (Wasko, 1993, p.164).  In general, theory on media and democracy focuses on ownership and economic aspects of media systems, the role of advertising and the manner in which journalists practice their profession.  Additional areas of theoretical focus note a relationship between the diversity of sources present in media and the quality of a democracy (Blumler & Gurevitch, 1995; Herman, 1992, pp. 11-12; Mazzocco, 1994).  In sum, these influences are often the most important in deciding the degree to which a media system is labeled “democratic.”  According to Splichal (1993), “democratic” communication spheres entail well-informed citizens who are interested in politics, and have equal rights to speak and participate in decision-making processes, which are submitted to public discussions. 

Many scholars suggest concentrated ownership often limits the democratic nature of media systems because it restricts the diversity of perspectives (Bagdikian, 1992; Herman & McChesney, 1997; McChesney, 1997, 2000).  Conglomeration often accelerates this erosion due to pressure to cross-promote news items in order to cut costs for media owners (Barnouw, et al., 1997).  In addition, concentrated media markets often reflect the political and economic policies of power holders (Herman & Chomsky, 1988).  As a result, scholars examining media and democracy often highlight a relationship between media ownership and the ideological content of media (McQuail, 1994, p.82)..

Second, aside from ownership, other communication theorists focus on economic conditions that affect the quality of democratic media systems.  Lee and Soloman (1990) note media often work more for the public interest when they focus less on profit-making.  Keane (1991) also suggests that when media are free of market liberalization and political influence by government, they tend to operate more democratically.  In addition, Keane (1991) argues that when politicians or business interests dominate media ownership and the creation of information, the public interest becomes sidelined.

            Third, besides ownership and economic influences, advertisers and journalists also influence the quality of a democratic media system.  Williams (1980) notes manipulation by advertising agencies can limit the media’s relationship with democracy.  To illustrate, advertisers may pull their funding when media present information that can harm the image of a company or its product.  As a result, media may often choose to “self censor” these stories based on the need to generate high profits for shareholders and attract continual advertisers.  Journalists are also important in this relationship.  For example, their career, political, and ethical interests influence the quality of media while their independence, political autonomy, as well as increased accountability and responsiveness also enhance the democratic nature of media systems (Schultz, 1998).

Fourth, and more importantly for our study, additional perspectives on media and democracy focus on the role of sources present in media coverage.  Although the media gather information from a variety of sources, the most widely used news sources are bureaucratic organizations in which a large amount of newsworthy information is processed and accumulated on a daily basis (Gans, 1979; Sigal, 1973; Roscho, 1975).  Consequently, news gathering procedures tend to be structured around organizations such as government agencies, political parties, big corporations and other “legitimized” social institutions.  By focusing on information-rich locales, reporters thus ensure they have access to a stable and continuous supply of news.

Indeed, according to Blumler and Gurevitch (1995), the diversity of sources in media may be one of the most important indicators linked with democratic communications.  They suggest political and economic conditions may favor certain sources and styles of political discourse over others.  As a result, democratic engagement between citizens and leaders becomes impeded while the public sphere becomes limited to elite and official political voices, with ordinary citizens and organizations being left out of, or sidelined, from public discourses.  As Herman (1992), Mazzocco (1994) and Blumler and Gurevitch (1995) have observed, when those with political and financial power determine who gets access to media, the nature of democratic communication has been subverted.

To explain the media’s tendency to focus on official sources, one account suggests the mass media’s main objective is to procure the necessary capital, information, workers, and other resources to maintain its existence.  As a result, mass media are inherently dependent on the organizations that provide such resources, and are highly sensitive to changes in the surrounding political environment (Roscho, 1975; Sigal, 1973).  From this standpoint, which assumes the dependency of mass media on certain parties and their interests, the agenda-setting and output of the mass media must also be understood as the result of being influenced by organizations in power.  Under this situation, the political and ideological tendencies of the news produced by mainstream media cannot help but be reflective to some extent of the power structure existent behind the scenes.  It has been pointed out that the reliance of mass media on certain groups as news sources leads to a skewed perspective on events, such that the forum for open public discussion is not effectively provided by the mass media.  This is noteworthy for news production, but it is particularly significant when media are primary sources of information on war and interventions, as in the case in the U.S. war on Iraq.  Reliance of mass media on elite sources limits access to information and skews the coverage of events, arguably undermining open, public discussions.  Indeed, as studies have repeatedly demonstrated, institutional representatives and elite spokespersons monopolize news coverage of important policy issues (Abramson, Arterton & Orren, 1988; Sunstein, 1993, pp. 241-251).

Method

In order to investigate the sources present in media coverage of the debate on whether to authorize military action in Iraq we conducted a content analysis of agenda setting newspapers.  A content analysis may be the most effective method for retrieving quantified references by using a predetermined list of criteria. Kracauer (1993) defines a content analysis as a quantitatively oriented methodology used to characterize and compare documents through standardized measurements and metrically defined units.  By studying media content in this way, we can make qualitative evaluations about media portrayals of social reality.  Indeed, one can ask if media content reflects social reality, and if so, whose reality does it reflect (McQuail, 1994, p. 186).

Nonetheless, one can critique content analysis as a means of gathering data because it is often unable to capture the context within an issue has meaning (Manning & Cullum-Swan, 1998).  In other words, content analyses may be unable to analyze the broader context with which media content is created.  We hope our broad discussion of theory aids this limitation. 

Data for this study were gathered by examining articles in hard copy editions of the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post.  A total of 1,020 sources were cited within 131 front-page newspaper articles during the month-long debate.  The New York Times had 302 source citations in 41 articles, the Washington Post had 427 citations in 53 articles, while the LA Times had 291 citations in 37 articles.

Our study quantified the number of source references during September and October of 2002.  We used President Bush’s speech to the United Nations on September 13 as our starting point because Bush “officially” stated his intention to go to war with Iraq to the international community unless certain conditions were met concerning the disarmament of its alleged weapons of mass destruction.  Our data ends on October 9th, less than 48 hours before the United States Senate approved the Bush administration’s proposal to act unilaterally against Iraq if Saddam Hussein refused to disarm his alleged weapons of mass destruction.

We chose to examine this time period because it held the most profound ramifications for war or peace.  Intense media coverage set the boundaries and agenda for public discourse, which augmented public discussion about the justification for the U.S. war on Iraq.  The outcome of this Congressional debate (which largely left the public outside of the discussion) decided whether or not the U.S. would support and authorize unilateral military action on Iraq. 

The debate occurring after October 12^th, 2002 was mostly external to the United States.  It focused on other countries either joining or opposing a U.S. led military endeavor in Iraq.  Although our analysis is limited to this timeline because of the significance of its ramifications, we continued our research through January of 2003.  The additional results confirmed the same basic distributive pattern of media sources that were exhibited between September and October.

Since we assume news organizations place what they believe to be the most important information on the front page, and that most media consumers focus on these stories, we limited our analysis to these articles.  Although this decision may reflect information most media consumers receive in the United States, it also limits our research results.  Almost all of the media we analyzed contained additional stories about the potential war in Iraq, which were not printed on the front page.  Of course these stories may include different types of sources compared to those presented on the front page.  Because our results are limited to front page articles, we suggest further studies include articles inside newspapers.  Nonetheless, our research results provide insight into the diversity of sources presented in articles to which most media consumers were exposed.

Measurement-coding procedure and news sources

For our content analysis, we created a code sheet including several categories for potential sources.  The general categories included dateline and type of source (government, public, foreign, etc.).  A total of 8 categories were used for news sources: 1) U.S. Government, 2) U.S. Public, 3) Iraq Government, 4) Iraqi Public, 5) UN Security Council Countries (non U.S.), 6) UN, 7) Other Governments and 8) Other sources not falling into the previously mentioned categories.  The “U.S. Government” consisted of President Bush, the Bush administration, U.S. Legislative Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate, as well as current and retired U.S. military.  “U.S. Public” consisted of U.S. academics, U.S. citizens and non-governmental organizations based in the United States, while “Iraqi Sources” included the Iraqi Government, the Iraqi National Congress, the Iraqi military, as well as the Iraqi media.  “Iraqi Public” consisted of Iraqi citizens and Iraqi religious leaders.  Several of the Iraqi sources, especially in the New York Times, were often Iraqi elites working not to promote democracy, but to actively remove Saddam Hussein in tandem with the U.S. government.

The “United Nations” category contained sources with titles representative of the United Nations.  In addition, representatives from the U.K., French, Russian, and Chinese governments consisted of “United Nations Permanent Security Council – Non-U.S. Category.”  Additional governments fell into the “Other Governments” category, while the “Others” category consisted of a mixture of coding categories that did not fall under one of the previous seven groupings.

We chose to define a source in the media as the informant of an actual quote.  With this definition, a source is more active in media because it is given a voice.  Without a quote, news writers were simply describing an event and not attributing a voice to a specific person.  Attribution appeared to be more important for our research team than mere description because it indicates that informants were speaking on their own terms and not through the mediated words of a reporter.  With a quote, there is no ambiguity about the source of the information.  Document quotes were also included in our definition of sources.  For example, if the Bush administration created a document that was quoted in the New York Times, then the Bush administration would be counted as a source. 

In addition, each source in a story, regardless of the number of mentions, was counted only once.  Because we defined a source though an actual quote and not the total number of quotes per source in each article, our results are rather conservative.  Several articles would note a subject “said” something but would not quote the individual or institute.  For example, in “Bush tells the United Nations it must stand up to Hussein, or U.S. will; Top advisors press body for Council vote” published in the Washington Post (9-13-02), Bush was quoted ten times and paraphrased four times.  Thus, our methods only counted Bush once, even though what he said was repeated or paraphrased a total of 14 times.  Because our methodology gave one citizen one count and one government one count, even though governments and elites were more likely to be quoted several times throughout each article, our results inflate the influence and significance of non-governmental sources.  Given that the results of our study already show vast discrepancies in the spectrum of cited sources, it is even more disturbing to understand that our results are biased toward elite and governmental sources.

If sources were quoted as being part of two agencies, (e.g., “a French Diplomat working with the United Nations”) our research team decided to use the title that would speak most directly to subject’s loyalties concerning his or her perspective.  Therefore, the French Diplomat would be considered part of the French government because he was speaking on behalf of his country within the framework of the United Nations.  Finally, we decided to include the State Department in the military source category due to its close connections with the armed forces.

            David J. Park (Ph.D. University of Wisconsin-Madison) and Sandra Nichols (Ph.D. University of Wisconsin-Madison) coded the sampled articles for the three newspapers.  Inter-coder reliability was conducted among coders for 20% of the articles that appeared across two newspapers (i.e., 26 articles).  Inter-coder reliability was tested specifically for sources quoted in the articles. After inter-coder reliability was established between the two coders, they completed the third paper, but did not conduct inter-coder reliability for it.  We assumed if reliability was already established between the two coders and the two papers that it would be unnecessary to examine inter-coder reliability for the third paper.  We conducted our reliability by measuring every article separately for each newspaper and coder, then we averaged the total percentage for all articles per paper.  The overall agreement rate was 84.86% (The New York Times =89.7% and Los Angeles Times =80.0%). 

Results

News sources

            Our results reaffirm and update previous research on news source analyses concerning the relationship between media and elite sources.  They also break new ground by shedding light on the boundaries of debate on whether to authorize military action on Iraq through examining the diversity of cited sources within a pre-war context.  Indeed, most war-related media research focuses on actual conflicts (Cohen, 1991; Greenberg & Gantz, 1993; Jeffords & Rabinovitz, 1994; Smith, 1992).  For the overall findings of this study, please view Appendix A, which shows the distribution of sources within each of the eight categories.

Figure 1. Source by category

            Figure 1 notes the total number of sources cited in the three newspapers registered as 1,020.  The New York Times had 302 references to sources, while the Los Angeles Times had roughly the same amount with 291 references.  The Washington Post contained significantly more source references with a total of 427.  Figure 1 also collapses the information within each of the eight categories (U.S. government, U.S. non-government, Iraqi government, Iraqi non-governmental, UN Permanent Security Council nations (excluding U.S.), Other governments, United Nations, and other sources) to provide the general trends within each group.

A total of 623 (61.08%) references to U.S. government sources occurred during our four-week period of analysis.  Indeed, more than three-fifths of the sources cited in these agenda setting papers came from governmental sources.  To contrast, members of the United States non-government category were quoted only 63 times (12.45%) out of a total of 1,020 references.  Interestingly, the Iraqi government obtained 127 (6.18%) source references, while the Iraqi non-governmental sources held only 17 references (1.67%).  The United Nations Security Council (Non-U.S. members) had almost as many references as the Iraqi government with 56 (5.49%) citations, while other governments obtained 59 references (5.78%).  The United Nations category gathered 29 (2.84%), while all other categories had 75 total references (4.51%).

U.S. non-governmental sources were cited once for every five governmental sources cited. U.S. non-governmental sources included 47 references to U.S. citizens, 37 references to U.S. think tanks, 23 references to U.S. academics, 6 to both U.S. media and other non-governmental organizations, and 4 references to both U.S. opinion polls and U.S. businesses for a total of 127 references within this category.  U.S. citizens dominated this category with 47 references, but were no competition compared to the 623 governmental sources cited.  Here, the media were more interested in giving voice to governmental perspectives rather than informing citizens about what other members of the public were thinking.

The frequency of news sources cited within the UN permanent Security Council (non-U.S. members) category was also small compared to other categories such as the U.S. government.  The media seemed to rely a bit more on Russia with a total of 22 citations, while the U.K. followed with 18, France with 12 and China last with only 4 citations.  The U.S. media may have cited Russian sources more than others given the historical relationship between the two countries.  Journalists were probably more familiar with Russia because of its status as the only other super power capable of countering the U.S. military during the Cold War.  However, it may also be likely that Blair and other U.K. sources captured more space in newspaper coverage than from other countries (not including the U.S.) such as Russia.  Because our study did not examine the amount of column inches devoted to sources, it may have artificially inflated Russia’s influence in the “debate.”

Table 1. News sources within all newspapers

As Table 1 shows us, there was not a big difference between the three newspapers concerning the distribution of sources per category.  Each newspaper basically followed the same pattern of focusing on U.S. governmental sources followed by U.S. non-governmental sources, followed by Iraqi governmental sources and other governmental sources etc.  Because the three newspapers were quite similar in terms of source distribution, they probably used similar news gathering practices and procedures.  They essentially followed the same news gathering strategies, which in this case, ended up focusing on U.S. governmental sources.

Figure 2 . Distribution of U.S. Governmental Sources

Figure 2 shows the allocation of the 623 sources within the U.S. Government category.  The results show that the Bush administration (rest of the “team”) dominated media coverage with 220 citations (34%), followed by Legislative Democrats in the House and Senate with 159 citations (26%).  Retired and current military members had 91 citations (15%) while legislative Republicans in both Congress and the Senate obtained 74 (12%).  President Bush followed with a total of 68 citations (11%), where as other U.S. governmental personnel were quoted 11 times (2%).

When one collapses and compares the data within a partisan framework, one finds that Republicans dominated the media during the Congressional debate to authorize military conflict in Iraq.  Figure 3 shows the total number of Republican media citations (for both administrative and legislative) compared to the number of citations garnered by legislative Democrats.

Figure 3 . Distribution of Republican and Democratic Sources

By collapsing President Bush with his administration and all Republicans in both the House and Senate, Republicans captured more than double the amount of citations garnered by Democrats.  Figure 3 indicates that Republicans gained a total of 362 citations (69.48%) within media coverage while Democrats trailed with only 159 (30.52%).  Indeed, the data describe a time period where there was supposed to be a debate occurring within the American political structure on whether or not to authorize military action on Iraq.  Ideally, the objective would be to offer robust and differential perspectives to inform the American public so it could decide for itself if potential threats warranted military action.  Not only did this occur within a month, which is hardly enough time to research a serious topic and offer a significant debate, it was also largely imbalanced in favor of Republican viewpoints.  Our data for the two months following the Senate’s decision to authorize military force on Iraq found that Republicans increased their media dominance by an even greater margin.  During October and November, the media chose to cite Republicans instead of Democrats by a ratio of more than 9 to1.  Only 7.48% of citations in the media we analyzed consisted of Legislative Democrats, while 92.52% were from Republicans.  This is a dramatic increase in only a few months.  Indeed, the Republicans increased their media dominance from 69.48% to 92.52%.  After the bi-partisan consensus was reached favoring the Republican agenda, the media appeared to give up on searching for Democratic viewpoints.  Even if the media had focused on Democratic perspectives, it is likely that few would have challenged or disagreed with the administration.  Because the media focused on political sources that acted in consensus, consumers of mass media were mostly led to believe there was little “credible” opposition to potential military action on Iraq.  Nonetheless, opposition from the public and elite sources such as former weapons inspectors, policy experts, families of 9/11 and others were sidelined in the “debate” while president Bush was becoming the most protested U.S. president in the history of the world.

The media also decided that looking for alternative viewpoints to the Iraqi government within Iraq was not as important.  Although this is more difficult given governmental surveillance of the Iraqi and foreign press, it was still possible as articles capturing individual Iraqi perspectives did emerge from time to time.  Nonetheless, the media preferred to cite predominately official Iraqi sources.  Figure 4 shows the distribution of Iraqi sources cited.

Figure 4 . Distribution of Iraqi sources

Indeed, the U.S. media we examined failed to give both sides equal weight by limiting opposing views within the U.S. and Iraqi contexts.  Interestingly, one might conclude that the U.S. media did not discriminate in using official sources between the U.S. and Iraqi governments during the debate.  For example, they did not focus on Iraqi groups opposing Saddam Hussein’s government, nor did they focus on non-governmental sources within the United States or Iraq.  Instead, the media basically reiterated official viewpoints from both countries, even while both governments were claiming the other was using propaganda and lying.  However, this does not mean the Iraqi government was given an equal amount of exposure in the U.S. media.  It was given much smaller space compared to the U.S. government.  Figure 5 demonstrates this point quite well by comparing the total number of citations received by both governments.

Figure 5 . U.S. Government vs. Iraqi governmental sources

The U.S. government received 623 citations in the media, while the Iraqi government garnered a mere 63. As a result, the American public was more than nine times as likely to hear its own government’s reasoning for authorizing military action in Iraq than the Iraqi argument against it.  Although this may seem like an imbalance, one could argue that the media were indeed following the practice of “giving both sides of the story.”  While the media did provide both perspectives, each argument was not presented with the same frequency nor with the same amount of delegated space, which ultimately give more credence to the U.S. government’s perspective.

In addition to this quantitative skew, it was also noticeable that U.S. and Iraqi governmental sources were presented quite differently.  The Iraqi sources were typically located in the latter part of articles, while the number of their quotes, as well as the space devoted to their quotes, were also relatively small compared to the lengths of quotes from U.S. officials. The reporters usually quoted Iraqi sources as stating something similar to “we do not have alleged weapons of mass destruction.” This practice seemed to fulfill the journalists’ goal of “presenting both sides.”  That is, presenting Iraqi sources marginally and insubstantially may have superficially fulfilled what journalists are supposed to do.  Nonetheless, such a superficial presentation appeared to even further legitimize the U.S. officials’ quotes.  Representations of Iraqi sources usually lacked in-depth information and often repeated similar messages to the public.  The journalists’ practice in devaluing Iraqi sources can also be acknowledged by the fact that they barely reported from Iraq, the actual location where a possible war would break. Among the articles analyzed, there were only three articles from the Washington Post that were reported from Iraq.

After the war began, it is important to note the absence of alleged weapons of mass destruction became nearly undeniable.  Because they were not located and may not have existed, more and more citizens became highly suspicious about the weapons of mass destruction claim, as well as how the argument in favor of the war was created.  Nonetheless, by the summer of 2004, the weapons of mass destruction issue seemed to have disappeared in the media.  Retrospectively, one could ask what if the U.S. media had spent more time and media space examining Iraqi officials’ claims during this pre-war debate?  The media may have been able to hold the U.S. government’s claims more accountable.  However, the U.S. media failed to do so as our data explicitly indicate through this substantial imbalance.

It is also important to note the media we examined focused on the Iraqi government as the only noteworthy opposition group to a potential U.S. invasion even though there were massive protests in the U.S. and across the globe.  By focusing on Iraq as the key entity opposed to an invasion, one could suggest the media further supported the Bush administration’s arguments in favor of an invasion.  How could the public take at face value the arguments from a country whose political structure is questioned as legitimate?  If the main oppositional view is already being questioned as valid, then why should the public take its arguments seriously?

Conclusion

This study examined sources within U.S. agenda setting newspaper coverage during a domestic debate on whether or not the U.S. House and Senate should authorize military action on Iraq.  Our results suggest that the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post predominately used Republican-centered governmental sources during the brief one-month debate between September 13^th and October 9^th of 2002.  The newspapers also acted in unison concerning the manner in which they gathered information on this topic.  Their similar news gathering practices generated the same basic distribution of sources for each of our research categories.

Our results support previous research in this area, which tells us when media content is monopolized by a few elite parties, the nature of democratic media has been subverted (Abramson, Arterton & Orren, 1988; Herman, 1992, pp. 11-12; Mazzocco, 1994; Sunstein, 1993, pp. 241-251).  In the context of this study, the dominance of Republican-centered governmental sources clashed with normative models grounded in democratic communication.  Theory on media and democracy suggests the media need to provide a diverse array of perspectives from a broad range of citizens, groups, and political entities.  This “normative model” is what is supposed to guide media in a democracy.  However, the use of “official” government sources without balancing them adequately with other civic sources questions the concept of “objective journalism” employed in today’s newsrooms.  It also subverts the quality of a democratic media system where, in theory, alternative perspectives should be given equal treatment.  The result led the Bush administration’s public relations staff to dominate the information and perspectives provided in mainstream U.S. newspapers.

While this study confirms and updates theory in media sourcing and its relationship with democracy, it also breaks new ground by analyzing what can be referred to as “pre-war” media coverage.  It also highlights difficulties with the existing media and political systems during this pre-war crisis period, where citizens needed diverse information and public discussion in order to make informed and educated decisions.

Our study suggests a crisis exists not only with the media system, but also within the political system.  Although the agenda setting media focus on official sources, it may not necessarily result in negative implications for democratic media systems.  Indeed, because political elites affect political, social, economic and cultural structures through national and international agendas, elites should garner adequate media attention.  If political elites consist of individuals with varying political perspectives and life experiences engaged in lively debates on topics of national and international importance, then the media’s use of “official sources” may be more representative of what the founders of the United States constitution had envisioned.  In this environment, the results of using “official” sources within media may not be as harmful to democracy as when political elites exhibit limited differences in political orientation and perspective, or when one perspective dominates media coverage.  Indeed, democratic communication and governance should be questioned by uniformity of politics in Congress and in other elite institutions.

Therefore the implications of this study not only reflect upon the media, but also on the United States political system.  Indeed, when a debate over a pending military intervention is limited to two official parties with similar views within a one-month period (although significant differences existed among the population), one finds a restricted political environment with little public debate.  The national and international implications for limited U.S. public debates are profound.  The lack of debate resulting from similar political perspectives among the two parties may encourage apathy or perhaps give rise to more expressive third party candidates.  Regardless, the media have an obligation to guarantee a lively debate occurs around topics in order to give the public the opportunity to think for itself and react appropriately.

While it is clear the media did not do this during our period of analysis, one can provide at least two accounts explaining why the U.S. agenda setting newspapers focused on Republican-centered political party sources.  The first explanation for the media’s trend in using official political sources suggests that the media may be more inclined to agree with the Bush administration’s stance concerning the invasion of Iraq and therefore decided to let this position dominate the coverage.  Indeed, Bush’s geo-political strategy of economic liberalization for the Middle East would no doubt open new markets to media conglomerates.  In addition, the media’s race to follow the patriotism generated from the White House also increased their profits though higher ratings and circulation rates.  Several media outlets reported high ratings leading up to the war, as well as during the actual conflict.  MSNBC’s ratings increased by 124 percent compared with a year earlier.  Fox News, the industry leader, also saw a 102 percent gain while CNN’s ratings rose by 91 percent (Perry, 2003).

If the media are purposefully focusing on Republican news sources over other media sources, then the press may be returning to its partisan roots, where media corporations select certain perspectives and sources matching their political views instead of providing diverse sources, opinions and perspectives.  If this is the case, this study’s results clearly see a media bias toward the Republican party.  However, this position assumes the Democratic party was generating the same amount of news worthy material as the Bush administration had generated and that the media chose not to use these Democratic sources.

While this may not have been the case, another explanation suggests that the Bush administration and the Republican party are simply more media savvy in terms of using the media to their advantage, which would mean the Democratic party is at a clear disadvantage.  Indeed, the agenda setting U.S. newspapers essentially transformed themselves into an echo chamber for the Bush administration during this time frame.  The administration was extremely effective in setting the initial boundaries of an “acceptable” debate concerning the potential war.  This persuasive media tactic has been around for centuries even though German propaganda minister Goebbels often took credit for it given his declaration of “Whoever speaks the first word to the world, is always right” (in Doob, 1954, p.518).  Here, the speed and placement of information is always crucial in terms of winning public support.

The Democratic party has only recently suggested this imbalance exists and has begun creating its own media infrastructure to counter-balance what it believes to be a biased media in favor of conservative and Republican perspectives.  While the Democrats may or may not alter this perceived imbalance, the war in Iraq has already began and will continue for sometime to come.  As history has already demonstrated, the Bush administration’s media “savviness” combined with the manner in which a small number of agenda setting media corporations practices journalism created an opportunistic environment in which to convince the American people that the invasion of Iraq was justified. 

While this article highlights important connections between media practices and political power during the second war in Iraq, its most valuable contribution may be a request for media reform.  Indeed, once media reform becomes a well-known political issue and changes are made, debates about media sourcing may gain significant attention.  Imagine a national discussion on the media’s relationship to governmental sources during times of war.  Discussions like these may eventually bear fruit thanks to new media reform groups such as Free Press.  In the meantime, concerned citizens need to remain vigilant and continue being active media contributors in hopes of diversifying media sources.

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Appendix A– Overall Findings

About the Authors

David J. Park (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2003).  Dr. Park is an Assistant Professor in the Communications Department at Xavier University in New Orleans.  His research interests include: political economy of mass communication, human rights, new
technology and the music industry, business and labor journalism, international communication, as well as the relationship between media and democracy.  He has published in American Behavioral Scientist, Journal of Communication Inquiry and is currently researching how conglomerate ownership affects public access to culture in the music industry.

Atsushi Tajima (Ph.D. Candidate, University of Wisconsin).  His major research interests include media and their effects in cross-cultural/national contexts; specifically, representations of race, ethnicity, and identity, as well as international news flows.

Seungahn Nah is a project assistant for the Mass Communication Research Center and is currently working on how post 9/11 news frames influence democratic participation and concerns for civil liberty and national security. His research interests center on the
Internet and democratic communication, as well as media and social movements.  He recently published Long Ago and Far Away: How U. S. Newspapers Construct Racial Oppression (2004, in press).

Sandra L. Nichols (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2003). She is currently a
consultant to a Madison-based research program investigating the role of communication in youth civic engagement.  Her research interests include communication and democracy and media representations of race, gender, class, and sexuality.

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