Exploring the Transatlantic Media Divide over Iraq

Abstract

There were significant differences in media reporting in the United States and Germany in the seven months prior to the war in Iraq. This article focuses on the coverage of United Nations weapons inspections in two print and two television media from the two countries. The main finding of this article is that, while media reporting in Germany and in the United States differed qualitatively, policy certainty and effective government framing of their respective but divergent policies on Iraq were critical factors. Both the Bush and the Schroeder governments were able to build on a predominant national consensus. The absence of critical reporting in both countries allowed the respective governments to dominate the foreign policy agenda. This led, in the United States, to support for the war and in Germany, to abstention from it. The American media in particular neglected their watchdog function.

Keywords

weapons inspections United Nations watchdog policy certainty

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Alterman, Eric . 2003. What Liberal Media? The Truth about Bias and the News. New York: Basic Books.

Bennett, W. Lance . 1994. “The News about Foreign Policy.” In Taken by Storm: The Media, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy in the Gulf War, ed. W. Lance Bennett and David L. Paletz . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Blix, Hans . 2004. Disarming Iraq. New York: Pantheon.

Entman, Robert . 2004. Projections of Power: Framing News, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Gowing, Nik . 2003. “Real-Time Television Coverage of Armed Conflicts and Diplomatic Crises: Does It Pressure or Distort Foreign Policy Decisions?”in Terrorism, War, and the Press, ed. Nancy Palmer . Cambridge, MA:Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy.

Hertoghe, Alain . 2003. La Guerre a Outrances. Paris: Calmann-Lévy

Hess, Stephen , and Marvin Kalb , eds. 2003. The Media and the War on Terrorism. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.

Kissinger, Henry . 1994. Diplomacy. New York: Touchstone.

Livingston, Steven . 1997. Clarifying the CNN Effect: An Examination of Media Effects According to Type of Military Intervention. Research Paper R-18. Cambridge, MA: The Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.

10.

Mermin, Jonathan . 1999. Debating War and Peace—Media Coverage of U.S. Intervention in the Post-Vietnam Era. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

11.

Purdum, Todd S. , and the Staff of the New York Times .2003. A Time of Our Choosing: America’s War in Iraq. New York: Times Books.

12.

Robinson, Piers . 2002. The CNN Effect: The Myth of News, Foreign Policy and Intervention. London: Routledge.

13.

Rusciano, Frank L. , and John C. Pollock . 2000. “World Opinion during Times of Crisis.”In Media Power in Politics, 4th ed., ed. Doris A. Graber . Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press.

14.

Strobel, Warren P. 1997. Late-Breaking Foreign Policy—The News Media’s Influence on Peace Operations. Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace Press.

15.

Waisbord, Silvio . 2002. “Journalism, Risk and Patriotism.” In Journalism after September 11, ed. Barbie Zelizer and Stuart Allan . New York: Routledge.

16.

Woodward, Bob . 2004. Plan of Attack. New York: Simon & Schuster.

17.

Zaller, John , and Dennis Chiu . 1996. “Government’s Little Helper: U.S. Press Coverage of Foreign Policy Crises, 1945-1991.” Political Communication 13 (2): 385-405.