Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

This study applies and evaluates the effectiveness of several critically inclined media performance models that have been termed by Robert Entman as the ‘hegemonic’ models: the propaganda and indexing models. The study proposes a synthesis of both these models, which serves as one of the main foundational theoretical components of the resulting media dependence model, an original and critical model of news analysis. An English-language news source and a Spanish-language news source belonging to the same company (Cable News Network (CNN) and CNN en Español) were analyzed in a sophisticated content analysis of coverage of major events in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2003 and 2004. The study concludes with the finding that ownership remains a powerful variable in news content, even when differing audiences and distinct public opinion leanings are in question.

Keywords

Iraq Fallujah CNN CNN en Espanol propaganda model indexing model media dependence model Chomsky Herman & Bennett

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Aday

Livingston

Hebert

(2005) Embedding the truth: A cross-cultural analysis of objectivity and television coverage of the Iraq War. Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 10(1): 3–21.

Althaus

(2003) When news norms collide, follow the lead: New evidence for press independence. Political Communication 20: 381–414.

Althaus

Edy

Entman

. (1996) Revising the indexing hypothesis: Officials, media, and the Libya crisis. Political Communication 13: 407–421.

American Presidency Project (2003) Press gaggle. Available at: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=61084&st=Fallujah&st1=Falluja (accessed 8 June 2015).

Bagdikian

(1983) The Media Monopoly, 1st edn. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

Bagdikian

(2004) The New Media Monopoly. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

Baker

(2002) Media concentration: Giving up on democracy. Florida Law Review 54(5): 839–919.

Bennett

(1990) Toward a theory of press–state relations in the United States. Journal of Communication 40(2): 103–125.

Bennett

(1996) An introduction to journalism norms and representations of politics. Political Communication 13: 373–384.

10.

Bennett

Lawrence

Livingston

(2007) When the Press Fails: Political Power and the News Media from Iraq to Katrina. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

11.

Börjesson

(ed.) (2004) Into the Buzzsaw: Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of a Free Press. New York: Prometheus.

12.

Börjesson

(ed.) (2005) Feet to the Fire: The Media after 9/11: Top Journalists Speak Out. New York: Prometheus.

13.

CBS (2004) Poll: Iraq taking toll on Bush, May. Available at: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/24/opinion/polls/main619122.shtml (accessed 22 April 2011)

14.

Chomsky

(1999) The mechanisms of management control at The New York Times. Media, Culture and Society 21(5): 579.

15.

Chomsky

(2006) An interested reader: Measuring ownership control at The New York Times. Critical Studies in Media Communication 23(1): 1–18.

16.

Deans

(2003) Americans turn to BBC for war news. The Guardian, 17 April. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2003/apr/17/broadcasting.Iraqandthemedia/print (accessed 8 June 2015).

17.

Dorman

Livingston

(1994) News and historical content: The establishing phase of the Persian Gulf policy debate. In: Bennett

Paletz

(eds) Taken by Storm: The Media, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy in the Gulf War. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, pp.63–81.

18.

Eilders

Lüter

(2000) Germany at war: Competing framing strategies in German public discourse. European Journal of Communication 15(3): 415–428.

19.

Entman

Page

(1994) The news before the storm: Limits to media autonomy in covering the Iraq war debate. In: Bennett

Paletz

(eds) Taken by Storm: The Media, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy in the Gulf War. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, pp.82–101.

20.

Entman

(2004) Projections of Power: Framing News, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

21.

Fico

Soffin

(1995) Fairness and balance of selected newspaper coverage of controversial national, state, and local issues. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 72: (3): 621–633.

22.

Gans

(1979) Deciding What’s News: A Study of CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, Newsweek, and Time. New York: Pantheon Books.

23.

Gilens

Hertzman

(2000) Corporate ownership and news bias. Journal of Politics 62(2): 369–386.

24.

Hallin

(1994) We Keep America on Top of the World: Television, Journalism, and the Public Sphere. New York: Routledge.

25.

Hallin

Mancini

(2004) Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

26.

Herman

(2000) The propaganda model: A retrospective. Journalism Studies 1(1): 101–112.

27.

Herman

Chomsky

(1988) Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books.

28.

Herman

Chomsky

(2002) Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books.

29.

Herman

Chomsky

(2008) Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. London: The Bodley Head.

30.

Kellner

(2008) War correspondents, the military, and propaganda: Some critical reflections. International Journal of Communication 2: 297–330.

31.

Kennis

(2009) An evaluation of US news coverage of the indigenous uprising in Ecuador, January 2000. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 6(4): 386–409.

32.

Kennis

(2012) The media dependence model: An analysis of the performance and structure of U.S. and global news. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL; Champaign, IL.

33.

Kennis

(2015, forthcoming) An Unworthy Social Movement? An Evaluation of the Media Dependence Model and the News Media Performance of The New York Times on Vieques, Puerto Rico.

34.

Lancaster

(2008) News media coverage of the Iraq war in Basra, Fall 2007: A case study in ‘spinning’ news for the state. International Journal of Communication 2: 976–992.

35.

Livingston

Eachus

(1996) Indexing news after the Cold War: Reporting U.S. ties to Latin American paramilitary organizations. Political Communication 13(4): 423–436.

36.

McChesney

(2000) Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.

37.

McChesney

(2004) The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communication Politics in the 21st Century. New York: Monthly Review Press.

38.

McChesney

(2013) Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism Is Turning the Internet against Democracy. New York: New Press.

39.

McChesney

Nichols

(2009) The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution That Will Begin the World Again. New York: Nation Books.

40.

McChesney

Schiller

(2003) The political economy of international communications: Foundations for the emerging global debate about media ownership and regulation. Technology, Business and Society Programme paper 11, Geneva: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development.

41.

Massing

(2004) Now They Tell Us: The American Press and Iraq. New York: The New York Review of Books.

42.

Meehan

(2005) Why TV Is Not Our Fault: Television Programming, Viewers, and Who’s Really in Control. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

43.

Mermin

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

44.

National Annenberg Election Survey (2004a) A year after bombing began, public is split on whether Iraq war was worth it, Annenberg polling shows. 17 March. Available at: http://cdn.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2004_03_iraq-still-worth-it_03-17_pr1.pdf (accessed 8 June 2015).

45.

National Annenberg Election Survey (2004b) American public shifts to view that prison guards were following orders, Annenberg polling shows. 24 May. Available at: http://cdn.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2004_03_treatment-of-prisoners_05-10_pr1.pdf (accessed 8 June 2015).

46.

National Annenberg Election Survey (2004c) Annenberg polling shows dismay over Iraq is increasing; Public supports Bush on staying but doubts he has a plan. 16 April. Available at: http://cdn.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2004_03_bush-vision-for-iraq_4-16_pr1.pdf (accessed 8 June 2015).

47.

Parenti

(1986) Inventing Reality: The Politics of the Mass Media. New York: St Martins.

48.

Pew Hispanic Center (2004) Latino attitudes on the war in Iraq, the economy and the 2004 election. Available at: http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/24.pdf

49.

Pickard

McChesney

(2011) Will the Last Reporter Please Turn Out the Lights: The Collapse of Journalism and What Can Be Done to Fix It. New York: The New Press.

50.

Schwalbe

(2013) Visually framing the invasion and occupation of Iraq in Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report. International Journal of Communication 7: 239–262.

51.

Schudson

(2003). The sociology of news. New York: Norton.

52.

Sparrow

(1999) Uncertain Guardians: The News Media as a Political Institution. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

53.

Thussu

(2004) Murdoch’s war – A transnational perspective. In: Kamalipour

Snow

(eds) War, Media, and Propaganda: A Global Perspective. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

54.

Tompkins

Cheney

(1985) Communication and unobtrusive control in contemporary organizations. In: McPhee

Tompkins

(eds) Organizational Communication: Traditional Themes and New Directions. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, pp.179–210.

55.

Zaller

Chiu

(1996) Government’s little helper: U.S. press coverage of foreign policy crises, 1945–1991. Political Communication 13(4): 385–405.

56.

Zhao

Schiller

(2001) Dances with wolves? China’s integration with digital capitalism. Info 3(2): 137–151.

57.

Zollmann

(2013) Manufacturing war? A comparative analysis of US, UK and German quality press coverage of the US occupation in Iraq. In: Media, war & conflict: Fifth anniversary conference, April 11–12. New Political Communication Unit, Department of Politics and International Relations, Royal Holloway, University of London.

Indexing state–corporate propaganda? Evaluating the indexing,propaganda and media dependence models on CNN and CNN en Español’s coverage of Fallujah,Iraq

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References