George W. Bush, Television News, and Rationales for the Iraq War

Blast from the past: U.S. foreign policy and Indexing India in U.S. press during Cold War

“…George W. Bush was quoted directly in 33% of the broadcast news and 50% of cable news. However, Coe (2011) also found that despite an overwhelming presence of George W. Bush in news content, issues raised by the U.S. president in his communication did not find much mention in news.…”

“…The conclusions of the study did not support indexing because governmental policies were not supported in the stories. Coe (2011) studied the influence of U.S. President George W. Bush's views on the press about U.S. involvement in toppling Saddam Hussain in Iraq. The research used content analysis of news stories and presidential communication over a year's time between 2003 and 2004.…”

Toward a Fuller Understanding of the Echoing Press: Presidential Addresses and theNew York Times, 1933-2013

“…Research in this tradition has found, for example, that news coverage following 9/11 closely paralleled President Bush's emphasis on “evil” (Coe et al, ), his language promoting national unity and urgency (Domke et al, ), and his use of traditionally masculine themes (Coe et al, ). Examining a yearlong period after the close of major combat operations in the Iraq War, however, Coe () found that the press did not closely echo the themes Bush was using to justify the war, such as freedom, threat, and peace.…”

“…For example, in a given presidential address there might be language that would be echoed by the press (e.g., “Americans are the hardest working people in the world”) but would not be coded in the typical indexing or agenda‐setting analysis because it does not represent the president's preferred position on a given issue (indexing) or focus on a discrete political issue (agenda building). And despite the close relationship between indexing and echoing, there is evidence that being a source in news coverage (indexing) is not always sufficient to get your chosen terms echoed by the news media (Coe, ). Additionally, specifying the three foci within Entman's broader model in this fashion might allow those studies of the president–press relationship that focus on framing generally (e.g., Miller et al, ) or on various other forms of language consistency between the president and the press (e.g., Eshbaugh‐Soha, ; Grand, ) to be situated more precisely within the most directly applicable extant literature.…”

Television News, Public Opinion, and the Iraq War

“…To the extent that these frames promote a certain understanding of the war in the minds of the audience, public support might vary accordingly. Numerous studies have tracked the presence of various frames in news coverage during times of war and crisis (e.g., Bennett, Lawrence, & Livingston, 2007; Coe, 2011; Domke, 2004; Entman, 2004), but it is rare for studies in this domain to directly test the effects of these frames on public opinion. Nonetheless, evidence demonstrating the effects of framing in a wide range of other contexts, from issues of race and gender to issues of free speech, is plentiful (e.g., Kellstedt, 2000; Nelson, Clawson, & Oxley, 1997; Terkildsen & Schnell, 1997).…”