This article presents the first systematic analysis of how location of drone strikes and the identification of civilian or terrorist casualties in newspaper reporting affect media assessments of operational outcomes and elite responsibility. Conducting a content analysis of several hundred newspaper articles, we evaluate the likelihood of these newspapers identifying the civilian casualties, the role those casualties play in media assessments of operational outcomes, and who they blame for failure. We found that there were significant differences in the likelihood of the two newspapers reporting civilian casualties. We demonstrate that political elites including the US President tended to avoid blame for failure, with much of the focus of newspaper dissatisfaction being directed at the intelligence agencies. We believe these findings have serious ramifications for the democratic oversight for future warfare and have the potential to undermine the ability of public to constrain elites from launching military operations using drones.
ArkinRC (2009) Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots. Boca Raton, FL: Taylor & Francis Group.
2.
AtkesonLRMaestasCD (2012) Catastrophic Politics: How Extraordinary Events Redefine Perceptions of Government. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
3.
BaumMAGroelingT (2010) Reality asserts itself: Public opinion on Iraq and the elasticity of reality. International Organization64(03): 443–479.
4.
BaumeisterRFBratslavskyEFinkenauerCet al. (2001) Bad is stronger than good. Review of General Psychology5(4): 323–370.
5.
BeierJM (2003) Discriminating tastes: ‘Smart’ bombs, non-combatants, and notions of legitimacy in warfare. Security Dialogue34 (4):411–425.
6.
BoyleMJ (2013) The costs and consequences of drone warfare. International Affairs89(1): 1–29.
7.
BrewerPRGrossK (2005) Values, framing, and citizens’ thoughts about policy issues: Effects on content and quantity. Political Psychology26(6): 929–948.
8.
ChongDDruckmanJN (2007a) Framing public opinion in competitive democracies. American Political Science Review101(4): 637–655.
9.
ChongDDruckmanJN (2007b) Framing theory. Annual Review of Political Science10: 103–126.
10.
CohenJ (1960) A coefficient of agreement for nominal scales. Educational and Psychological Measurement20(1): 37–46.
D’AlessioD (2012) Media Bias in Presidential Election Coverage, 1948–2008. New York: Lexington Books.
13.
DaviesGAMJohnsR (2016) R2P from below: Does the British public view humanitarian interventions as ethical and effective?International Politics53(1): 118–137.
14.
DruckmanJN (2001) The implications of framing effects for citizen competence. Political Behavior23(3): 225–256.
15.
DruckmanJNNelsonKR (2003) Framing and deliberation: How citizens’ conversations limit elite influence. American Journal of Political Science47(4): 729–745.
16.
EnemarkC (2011) Drones over Pakistan: Secrecy, ethics, and counterinsurgency. Asian Security7(3): 218–237.
17.
EnemarkC (2013) Armed Drones and the Ethics of War: Military Virtue in a Post-Heroic Age. New York: Routledge.
18.
EntmanRM (1993) Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication43(4): 51–58.
19.
EntmanRM (2004) Projections of Power: Framing News, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
20.
IyengarS (1989) How citizens think about national issues: A matter of responsibility. American Journal of Political Science33(4): 878–900.
21.
IyengarS (1994) Is Anyone Responsible? How Television Frames Political Issues. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
22.
IyengardS (1990) Framing responsibility for political issues: The case of poverty. Political Behavior12(1): 19–40.
23.
JordanDL (1993) Newspaper effects on policy preferences. Public Opinion Quarterly57(2): 191–204.
KahlCH (2007) In the crossfire or the crosshairs? Norms, civilian casualties, and U.S. conduct in Iraq. International Security32(1): 7–46.
27.
KoplowDA (2006) Non-Lethal Weapons: The Law and Policy of Revolutionary Technologies for the Military and Law Enforcement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
28.
KoplowDA (2010) Death by Moderation: The U.S. Military’s Quest for Useable Weapons. New York: Cambridge University Press.
KrepsSKaagJ (2012) The use of unmanned aerial vehicles in asymmetric conflict: Legal and moral implications. Polity44(2): 260–285.
31.
KrishnanA (2009) Killer Robots: Legality and Ethicality of Autonomous Weapons. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
32.
MalhotraNKuoAG (2008) Attributing blame: The public’s response to Hurricane Katrina. The Journal of Politics70(1): 120–135.
33.
MayerM (2015) The new killer drones: Understanding the strategic implications of next-generation unmanned combat aerial vehicles. International Affairs91(4): 765–780.
34.
MuellerJE (1973) War, Presidents and Public Opinion. New York: Wiley.
35.
MurrayS (2014) Broadening the debate about war: Inclusion of Foreign critics in media coverage and its potential impact on US public opinion. Foreign Policy Analysis10: 329–350.
36.
NorrisP (1995) The restless searchlight: Network news framing of the post-cold war world. Political Communication12(4): 357–370.
SauerFSchörnigN (2012) Killer drones: The ‘silver bullet’ of democratic warfare?Security Dialogue43(4): 363–380.
40.
ScheufeleDA (2000) Agenda-setting, priming, and framing revisited: Another look at cognitive effects of political communication. Mass Communication and Society3: 297–316.
41.
ScheufeleDATewksburyD (2007) Framing, agenda setting, and priming: The evolution of three media effects models. Journal of Communication57: 9–20.
42.
SchulzkeM (2011) Robots as weapons in just wars. Philosophy & Technology24(3): 293–306.
43.
SchulzkeM (2014) The morality of remote warfare: Against the asymmetry objection to remote weaponry. Political Studies64: 90–105.
SheetsPRowlingCMJonesTM (2015) The view from above (and below): A comparison of American, British and Arab news coverage of US drones. Media, War, & Conflict8(3): 289–311.
46.
SingerPW (2009) Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century. New York: Penguin Press.
47.
SmithMWalshJI (2013) Do drone strikes degrade Al Qaeda? Evidence from propaganda output. Terrorism and Political Violence25(2): 311–327.
48.
SorokaSMcAdamsS (2015) News, politics, and negativity. Political Communication32(1): 1–22.
49.
SorokaSN (2006) Good news and bad news: Asymmetric responses to economic information. Journal of Politics68(2): 372–385.
50.
StrawserBJ (2010) Moral predators: The duty to employ uninhabited aerial vehicles. Journal of Military Ethics9(4): 342–368.
51.
VonkR (1996) Negativity and potency effects in impression formation. European Journal of Social Psychology26(6): 851–865.
52.
WaeverDH (2007) Thoughts on agenda setting, framing, and priming. Journal of Communication57: 142–147.
53.
WalshJI (2015) Precision weapons, civilian casualties, and support for the use of force. Political Psychology36(5): 507–523.
54.
WoodsC (2014) Sudden Justice: The True Costs of America’s Secret Drone War. London: C Hurst & Company.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
