The Media s Role in Shaping American Public Opinion of. Foreign Policy

The Media’s Role in Shaping American Public Opinion of Foreign Policy A Directed Research Project Submitted to The Faculty of The Public Communication...
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The Media’s Role in Shaping American Public Opinion of Foreign Policy A Directed Research Project Submitted to The Faculty of The Public Communication Graduate Program School of Communication American University Washington, D.C.

In Candidacy for the Degree of Master of Arts By Jennifer Hubbard

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Abstract The American press has become so enamored of power and politics that it has in recent years failed to maintain its independence and act as a watchdog over the government. Instead, the press and the administration will sometimes work together in order to present a certain frame of a scenario or issue to the American public, thus forming orchestrated opinions and creating support for or against the issue. The failures of the press to scrutinize the Bush administration’s preemptive war on Iraq and to question the administration’s policy on torture of captives at Abu Ghraib are the most appalling examples of the press taking its cues from government officials. In order to improve foreign policy relations with other countries, it is in the interest of the United States to play a proactive role in the affairs of the United Nations. However, as a result of framing and indexing techniques applied by the administration and the media when reporting on United Nations events many Americans have shown indifference and even negativism towards the organization in particular and foreign policy in general.

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Table of Contents INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................................... 4
 LITERATURE REVIEW........................................................................................................ 8
 FRAMING .................................................................................................................................................... 8
 CASCADING ACTIVATION .................................................................................................................. 10
 INDEXING ................................................................................................................................................ 12
 ANALYSIS ...............................................................................................................................15
 CASE STUDY: THE ROLE OF ELITES AND MEDIA IN SHAPING FOREIGN POLICY DECISIONS ............................................................................................................................................... 15
 CASE STUDY: THE CASE OF ABU GHRAIB EXPLAINED THROUGH FRAMING AND INDEXING ................................................................................................................................................ 19
 CASE STUDY: PUBLIC OPINION AND THE CASE OF THE IRAQ WAR .................................... 23
 CASE STUDY: A LOOK AT WHAT ACCOUNTS FOR AMERICAN HOSTILITY TOWARDS THE UNITED NATIONS ........................................................................................................................ 29
 CONCLUSIONS......................................................................................................................35
 OPINION LEADER CAMPAIGNS AND HOW THEY CAN IMPROVE SUPPORT FOR THE UNITED NATIONS.................................................................................................................................. 35
 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................40


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Introduction “Every routine, every habit this city knew was fractured yesterday. If a flight full of commuters can be turned into a missile of war, everything is dangerous. If four planes can be taken over simultaneously by suicidal hijackers, then we can never be quite sure again that any bad intention can be thwarted, no matter how irrational or loathsome. It was one of those moments in which history splits, and we define the world as “before” and “after”. We have nearly all had occasion to wonder how civilians who suddenly found their country at war and themselves under attack managed to frame some memory of life as it once was. Now we know. We look back at sunrise yesterday through pillars of smoke and dust, down streets snowed under with the atomized debris of the skyline, and we understand that everything has changed.” The New York Times, September 12, 2001 (Lule, 2002)

The New York Times editorial page was dominated by the events of September 11 and their aftermath. From September 12 to October 12, the paper published eighty-four editorials, usually three a day. Of these eighty-four, fiftyeight of them directly related to the consequences and after effects of the terrorist attacks. For the first eight days after the attack, every editorial confronted some feature of September 11 (Lule, 2002). No other issue was worthy of consideration. Over the course of the four weeks, Times editorials drew from four crucial myths to portray events: 1) The End of Innocence, 2) The Victims, 3) The Heroes, 4) The Foreboding Future. The use of the myth, which invokes archetypal figures and forms at the heart of human storytelling, helped to frame issues surrounding the events of September 11 in the minds and thoughts of 4

Americans. In times of crisis, myth often offers the reassurance of the Hero. Times editorials portrayed heroes drawn from public officials and emergency workers, and especially President George W. Bush, - who had been a subject of ridicule and scorn in the weeks preceding September 11, but were not portrayed as having “risen to the occasion” to assume the mantle of the hero. The Times congratulated President Bush for coming to New York, visiting the attack site, and promising $20 billion in aid in the editorial, “President Bush’s First Win”. The construction of political leaders as heroes legitimizes the actions of those leaders and strengthens their authority at critical times. The Times’ portrayal of President Bush as “a leader whom the nation could follow” offered implicit (and politically important) support for the administration’s response to September 11 (Lule, 2002). The New York Times editorial page was successful in using myth as a technique, whether knowingly or not, to frame stories that would influence the views of U.S. citizens. The relationship between political power and the news media in the United States has grown much closer, especially with regard to foreign relations issues. The press has become too cozy with the sources of power in this nation, making it largely the communication mechanism of government, not the people that it serves (Bennett, 2007). An ideal free press balances official views with a more impartial perspective that allows the public to deliberate independently on the government’s decisions and form independent views (Entman, 2004). However, the relationship between governing elites and news organizations is becoming increasingly stronger; closer to the point where reporters’ dependence

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on official government sources impedes coverage of any dissenting voice from all but the most influential circles (Bennett, 2007). With the election of President Barack Obama, our nation is once again focusing on developing and maintaining strong relations with foreign nations. To ensure that the American public understands this foreign policy shift, it is imperative that they have access to accurate, timely and balanced news coverage of foreign policy issues. No country can ignore the effects of increasing globalization. Diseases don’t recognize borders, pollution of the air and oceans is occurring, green house emissions are wreaking havoc and terrorism is a global concern. Consequently, every country should be interested in supporting global mechanisms to combat global problems. Every country should be concerned with and place an emphasis on relations with foreign nations, as it is these relationships that will lead to collective action on global issues. There is no world government in place; however, the United Nations (UN), with 192 member states and a unique international mandate can perform an important role in addressing common issues and promoting peace and development in the world. Therefore, in addition to improved foreign policy relations with other countries, it is in the interest of the United States to play a proactive role in the affairs of the United Nations. Our country cannot afford to have a xenophobic attitude towards other countries, nor can we show disinterest. Unfortunately, many Americans have shown indifference and even negativism towards foreign relations policy in general and the United Nations in particular. Many people view the UN as an ineffective and weak institution that 6

doesn’t serve the interests of the U.S. They either don’t understand the importance of foreign relations to the U.S. and the role of the UN or believe it is a waste of government time and money. Americans don’t think that the UN General Assembly, with one country equaling one vote, is a sensible way to decide world affairs and often view that countries such as China and Russia oppose positions taken by the U.S. Yet, the UN still represents a most viable option to address issues and concerns that affect the global stage. People have wondered why there is increasing hostility towards the UN, contemplating what erodes the ability of the UN to counter the United States’ voice and why the UN has had such difficulty in projecting their achievements into the mainstream American media. Research points to the overwhelming negative influence that the U.S. government and administration in power has used to influence and dominate the media in order to tell their own story. This paper explores the media’s role in shaping American public perceptions of various foreign policy issues through the use of two dominant communication theories framing/cascading activation and indexing - and by examining specific events or case studies that serve to showcase this phenomenon.

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Literature Review In order to understand the media’s role in shaping American public opinion regarding foreign policy issues, it is important to explore and understand the two dominant communication theories that help to sustain this phenomenon – framing/cascading activation and indexing. The available research and literature have determined that these two theories are used to establish a covert influence over American citizens and how they understand foreign relations issues. The media and administration together have played a pivotal role in shaping American views and opinions on foreign policy by leveraging these communication theories.

Framing On the morning after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, President George Bush addressed the American people. “The deliberate and deadly attacks which were carried out yesterday against our country were more than acts of terror, they were acts of war,” he said. “This will require our country to unite in steadfast determination and resolve. This will be a monumental struggle of good versus evil, but good will prevail.” In these remarks, as well as many others, President Bush defined a problem in simple and emotional terms as an “act of war” and identified its clear cause as an “enemy” that was “evil.” The president and his team repeated these specific phrases over and over again in the months following the attacks. This repetitive use and framing of the terrorist attacks in such a way was a key element of the administration’s strategy to “unite” the 8

country so as to gain support for its solution: “the war on terror” and need for military intervention to overthrow the Taliban government in Afghanistan. Before the early stages of war were waged by the U.S., it was vital to convey an emotionally compelling frame to the American people. When combat in Afghanistan began, it would be with full support from Congress and the media – and tremendous public support. President Bush’s initial frame for September 11 dominated the news night after night (Entman, 2004). Framing is the central process by which government officials and journalists exercise political influence over each other and over the public (Riker, 1986). This communication theory entails selecting and highlighting some facets of events or issues, and making connections among them so as to promote a particular interpretation, evaluation, and/or solution. The words or images that make up a frame can be distinguished from the rest of the news by their capacity to stimulate support of or opposition to the sides in a conflict. The Bush administration’s recurring use of words such as “evil” and “war” in framing September 11, paired in many media reports with searing images of the burning and collapsing World Trade towers, provides an excellent example of how emotions were stirred and public support for government action was stimulated. (Entman, 2004). The framing of a given issue, actor or event during a defined time period can be considered along a continuum from total dominance by one frame to a standoff between competing frames. Occasionally, one among the potential frames of a situation so thoroughly dominates the media that alternative readings 9

or frames become virtually irrelevant to the public. In these cases, the dominant frame produces one-sided results, and these in turn discourage dissenting politicians from speaking out, resulting in cementing the hold of one frame. This in turn forces the media to provide the public with the one dominant frame of reference that is tremendously difficult for opposing voices to challenge. Entman (2004) asserts that especially in covering foreign policy issues, it is not uncommon to find overwhelming dominant frames in the news.

Cascading Activation The cascading activation model supplements research using the hegemony or framing approaches. In this approach or model interpretive frames activate and spread from the top level of a stratified system (the White House) to the network of non-administration elites, and on to news organizations, their texts and the public – and how interpretations feed back from lower to higher levels (Entman, 2004). Entman’s research on cascading activation advances a coherent conception of framing within a new model of the relationship between government and the media in U.S. foreign policy-making. The model is based on the notion of spreading activation, meaning, a new report showing a picture of Osama Bin Laden has great cultural resonance and will likely reactivate an American’s negative feelings, bringing to mind conscious or unconscious memories of the attacks of September 11, 2001. The spreading activation of thoughts or “nodes” within an individual’s mind (regardless of their place in

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society) has parallels in the way ideas travel along interpersonal networks and the spread of framing words and images across the different media (Entman, 2004). Ideas that start at the top government level, the administration, possess the greatest strength. The president and top advisors enjoy the most independent ability to decide which mental associations to activate and have the highest probability of moving their own thoughts into general circulation. However, administration figures and other elites maintain social and professional contact with top-tier journalists, exchanging information off the record and on. This interface between journalists and elites is a key transmission point for spreading activations of frames, and according to Entman (2004) it is not necessarily easy to determine who influences whom. The public’s representation in this process can flow in both directions. Public opinion is typically a dependent variable, although it sometimes feeds back to influence elites by way of the media. If new reports create impressions that an idea is held widely and strongly supported by large portions of the public, it can affect leaders’ strategic calculations and policy tactics. However, this perception of where the public stands itself becomes a matter of framing, an object of political power and strategy. If the White House can disseminate the notion that public opinion favors the president, that perception can help delegitimize and sometimes silence the elite opposition. This helps explain why elites fail to contest the White House frame, but also why elite opposition does sometimes rise and spread down the cascade to news texts and the public and possibly upwards to alter the calculations of the administration.

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The cascading activation model allows for only the most important ideas and frames to be transferred from one level to the next, resulting in the media highlighting the dominant frame about the issue to the public. Thus, the cascade model helps to provide guidance on exactly what information in the news is critical to national and foreign policy-making. Entman (2004) concludes by stating that as hegemony theorists would predict, September 11 revealed yet again that media patrol the boundaries of culture and keep discord within the conventional bounds. But inside those borders, even when government is promoting war, media are not entirely passive receptacles for government propaganda, at least not always, and the cascade activation model illuminates deviations from the preferred frame (Entman, 2004).

Indexing A great deal of daily news appears to be “indexed” to the official political agenda, with coverage bounded by the range of public debate in Washington power circles. Some media scholars believe that “power” talks with the loudest and sometimes the only voice in high-stakes, hard-news stories. According to Lance Bennett and colleagues (2007), the core principle of the mainstream press system in the United States appears to be this: the mainstream news generally stays within the sphere of official consensus and conflict displayed in the public statements of the key government officials who manage the policy areas and decision-making processes that make the news. Journalists calibrate the news based on this dynamic power sphere. The process is simplified by focusing on 12

key policies that are in play; the perceived power of the factions that are lined up for or against the dominant options; and whether any reputedly viable institutional initiative or action might change the course of policy or the outcome of a decision, and then faithfully recording the spin operations of the most powerful players. This ongoing, implicit calibration process conducted by the press corps creates a weighting system for what gets into the news, what prominence it receives, how long it gets covered, and who gets a voice in the stories. The implicit weighting of these key story elements according to the positioning of power blocs at key decision points along news beats is so regularized that Bennett (2007) has dubbed this theory “indexing”. The process, he says, is similar to the mechanics of opening and closing the news gates. The press gatekeepers (that is, the news executives) open the gates wider or close them more tightly as they perceive potentially decisive challenges or a lack of challenges to the most powerful institutional players and their agendas. Bennett (2007) offers this indexing theory as a useful starting point for thinking about the behavioral tendencies of the press in U.S. politics, particularly when covering foreign policy and war. Shifting periods of elite consensus in the policy-making process become punctuation points in news coverage as political forces line up for or against particular initiatives. The press monitors these power formations, and reports them in insider terms of strength of support or opposition for the leading initiative or the contending initiatives, resulting in something of a scorecard that updates 13

political junkies on the winners and losers in the game. Indexing the news to points of institutional decision conflict sets the broad terms of press narratives, within which various news sources are sorted primarily in terms of their ability to affect the political process and to spin the media most aggressively and effectively. Most of the time, both of these factors – political power and spin capacity – accrue to highly placed officials in the White House and Congress, though occasionally lower-level sources gain temporary ability to shape the news. Resulting stories focus on who won and who lost a vote, a court case, a decision to go to war, etc. And those stories generally stick to the language and political limits set by the officials involved, especially with regard to fundamental decisions about foreign policy and war. The story lines of the news tend to track closely with journalists’ perceptions of power in government institutions. News accounts remain fairly stable after policy decisions are taken, until the next decisive moment occurs, in which case the Washington consensus and news accounts may shift again (Bennett, 2007). Bennett asserts that the prominence of various perspectives in the news does not have so much to do with whether they are supported by available facts, but whether they have powerful champions, and whether they go unchallenged (or survive challenges) by other powerful players. The mainstream press ordinarily does not rely on sources that fall outside the scope of the Washington power circle. When a credible source steps forward to challenge the official administration line, the media often degenerates into an

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examination of personal motives, questioned credentials and personal innuendo, rather than engage in a consideration of facts (Bennett, 2007).

Analysis Case Study: The Role of Elites and Media in Shaping Foreign Policy Decisions The relationship between governing elites and news organizations is less distant and more cooperative than the ideal, especially with regards to foreign affairs. The powerful Washington elites and the mainstream media are undeniably connected; the question is how is this connection reflected in the news and what are the effects on foreign policy and government accountability? Both the cascading activation/framing theory and indexing theory focus on key sets of influences when accounting for elite authority, while at the same time the two models possess unique differences as well. Along with the President and Executive Branch, the network of other elite sources shapes the news and thus the publicly available information on foreign policy. Elites concerned with foreign policy in Washington interact regularly, creating a network community of active discourse and deliberation among people having a range of informed views they can articulately debate. According to Entman (2004), prior research into the impact of public opinion on foreign policy offers surprisingly little insight into exactly how elites determine what the public is thinking. Most researchers assume that political motivations lead officials more or less accurately to detect and respond to public opinion. Entman (2004) 15

explores the path of political communication to reveal the complex interplay of news frames with the thinking of elites and citizens. He asserts that three insights from the cascade model are especially pertinent here: 1. The public’s actual opinions arise from framed information, from selected highlights of events, issues, and problems rather than from direct contact with the realities of foreign affairs. 2. Elites for their part cannot know the full reality of public thinking and feeling but must rely on selective interpretations that draw heavily on news frames. 3. Policymakers relentlessly contend to influence the very news frames that influence them (Entman, 2004).

Although the schemas and interpretations within individuals’ minds arise from prior beliefs and interpersonal communication as well as from the media’s words and images, there is no escape from framing. With regard to foreign policy, there are few if any cases where a pure, unmediated public opinion emerges directly from reality. That does not mean everyone responds to the media’s frames identically, but it does mean that most people’s opinions will be influenced by their reactions to the frames. Research has shown that elites often misread public opinion, sometimes willfully, sometimes not. One reason is that, except for presidents, who have the resources to support continuous, sophisticated polling operations, most leaders do not have good survey data. Rather than attend carefully to polls, most elites find their interpretations of public opinion by consulting other leaders and news coverage (Entman, 2004). Leaders work proactively to shape media frames, promoting news that will stimulate public 16

support, dampen opposition and promote the perception that public opinion is in their corner. Irrespective of any impact on the public’s response to surveys, news frames influence elites’ understanding of the political stakes in policy decisions, their substantive thinking about policy, and their perceptions of how other elites are assessing the policy substance and politics. Precisely because news frames influence their fellow elites in all these ways, even as they are themselves experiencing these effects, leaders try to shape the frames. The constant jousting to win frame contests and thus control “news spin” are designed as much to influence their fellow leaders as public opinion. Results show that elite discord is a necessary condition for politically influential frame challenges, and the cascade model helps explain when that condition arises, and how journalists can hinder or advance it. Entman (2004) asserts that garnering elites to voice and support messages is a critical aspect of gaining public support. Mainstream media often uses the power of elites to legitimize their message and make the news story appear more credible. When journalists have the ability to quote notable sources, who can either oppose or support the administrations framing of an issue, it resonates with the audience and relies upon the American public’s heuristics to revert their thinking to a familiar frame. According to Bennett’s indexing model (2007), sustained debate in the news is usually produced by disagreement among political elites who are perceived by the press to wield enough power to affect the course of policy. The volume, clarity, and shape of messages from those powerful sources, in turn, depends on the quality of their communication resources, which in turn, is often

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related to who wields the most effective communications strategies. Because policy powers are particularly constrained in the area of foreign affairs, this news formula means that a fairly limited range of elites, most often from the Executive Branch and Congress, set the parameters of national debate. Bennett (2007) argues that this model of news making has been well established in research, but what has been less examined is the culture of consensus in Washington politics that reinforces these kinds of news decisions every day. Consensus around what a story is about does not simply emerge fully formed. The constant underlying process of elites vying for news position gives the Washington consensus a dynamic quality. The promotion of strategic images and perspectives on events through the complex political social networks of Washington is often referred to as “spin” or “buzz”. In order to understand how a Washington consensus may emerge around a particular story, and how various conforming-enforcing dynamics work, Bennett (2007) points out that it helps to remember that many Washington reporters are part of, not separate from, the political environment they cover. Debates, disagreements, and strongly felt foreign policy differences exist in Washington much more frequently than one would guess from reading newspapers. But the disagreements are muted, the arguments private and the public left unaware (Bennett, 2007). Indexing and other models of press-state relations are about the public component of a larger body of private disagreements among officials and others in a position to speak authoritatively about the pressing issues of the day. The consensus that keeps this news control game going is often

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threatened by opposing elites who speak out on issues that have the potential to change the story itself. In these cases, dominant elites often seek to suppress that conversation by discrediting or intimidating other sources. Elites see themselves as agents in constructing the Washington consensus, not only in trying to dominate the news and spinning their positions through influence networks, but in the stealthy warfare they wage against competing sources (Bennett, 2007). Although indexing quite convincingly emphasizes elite opposition as a vital determinant of whether the news will deviate from the White House line, it does not fully explain why leaders sometimes choose to contest the White House frame and other times keep quiet, or just how much elite opposition will arise (Entman, 2004).

Case Study: The Case of Abu Ghraib Explained Through Framing and Indexing The events that took place in 2004 at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq provide a compelling example of how the two communication models of framing and indexing can help explain the resulting foreign policy news as covered by the American media. The news can either promote or inhibit the public’s understanding of information and context surrounding news events, thereby helping or hindering an administration’s efforts to mold public opinion. News frames are dominant news perspectives that can produce various results, sometimes arousing public attention by labeling events in ways that evoke moral disapproval (Bennett, 2007). Lance Bennett explores the media’s use of framing

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and their definition of the events that occurred at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2004. To assess the relative strength of various definitions in mainstream press coverage of Abu Ghraib, Bennett (2007) tracked four labels that were most prevalent in a preliminary analysis of a sample of national news examined during the spring and summer of 2004; mistreatment, abuse, torture and scandal. Bennett (2007) suggested that the word scandal provided little substance about the actions in question, except that they were controversial. He asserted that torture had a stronger connection in both common usage and legal terminology to intentional behavior, particularly interrogation policies and practices, than do the terms mistreatment and abuse. These predominant labels assigned to events at Abu Ghraib offered broad cues to policy-makers and the public about the meaning of those events and how to react to them. Torture was the definition that most directly challenged the Bush administrations claims. The trends in how often these four terms appeared in the news provide a great deal of information about the ability or inability of the press to challenge the government’s preferred frame. In his conclusions Bennett (2007) found that the kind of coherent and sustained challenge to the Bush administration’s “isolated abuse” claim that would have created an information environment that might have enabled average citizens to assess alternative perspectives more clearly was lacking. In the end, it mattered that the media converged on the “abuse” definition and stayed away from torture in their news stories, because those basic language choices structured public responses to the story. Even though the media released gruesome photos of the events that took place at Abu Ghraib, the failure of the torture frame

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suggests that event-driven news reporting, particularly in matters of high foreign policy consequence, is seriously constrained by mainstream news organizations’ deference to political power. Lacking any consistent counter-perspective from high-level officials the national media declined to challenge the Bush administration’s claims, and ultimately their frame (Bennett, 2007). The indexing theory can be applied to the Abu Ghraib scandal in an approach that sheds a different light on the events that unfolded and how the media presented them to the American public. Bennett (2007) explores this theory and how the shifting patterns of elite discourse associated with actors in key decision-making processes of institutions explain the “tortured” path taken by journalists in covering the scandal at Abu Ghraib and other U.S. military detention and interrogating facilities. Scholarly evidence shows that news story frames changed decidedly with the shifting punctuation points of Washington power alignments over prisoner treatment in the War on Terror. In the early stages of the story, following the release of horrifying photos from the Abu Ghraib prison, the available evidence supporting a deeper discussion about torture policy simply did not have powerful government champions capable of challenging the Pentagon or the White House, and so the story was written as the Bush White House and Pentagon would have it: a case of isolated, if regrettable, low-level abuse. Later, when Senator John McCain, a powerful opponent in government (within President Bush’s own party), had mobilized enough Senate votes to force the president to accept a legislative admonition against torture, the news changed its language accordingly, using the term torture much more

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prominently to talk about high-level tactics in the War on Terror. Yet, even during this phase of the story, the news was framed as a political contest between Congress and the White House in which Congress held sway. Since a Republican Congress was careful to avoid questions of presidential legal responsibility for past behavior, the news largely avoided those questions as well. This simple theory of indexing thus explains why, even when it entered the story, the language about torture continued to be severed from legal questions that might otherwise have been addressed to high officials of the Bush administration, including the Attorney General, the President, the Vice President, and the Secretary of Defense. Bennett (2007) concludes that in the end, the mainstream media failed to address a prominent question: why was there need for a legislative provision commanding the administration to obey the law if there was not concern that it had broken it? As a result of this indexing of the daily story line to power, there are often two competing realities of important political stories: a documented outside reality about the situation and a Washington political reality about the situation. The U.S. press generally allows the latter to define the former, even when the two are known to be far apart (Bennett, 2007). Not only does this rule keep the press closely tethered to government, but it also renders much of the world outside the United States largely irrelevant, although the better news organizations report high-level official positions of other nations for the record. These positions tend to become a critical factor in domestic U.S. news stories only when key political policy decisions drift into international institutions 22

such as the United Nations, or into joint international operations in which other nations share in the decision making (Bennett, 2007). The Abu Ghraib photographs that were released could have become a vehicle for journalists to turn to independent and credible sources outside the powerful circle of government for asking hard questions about the conduct of the war in Iraq.

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Washington story became set, other sides of the story were more easily excluded by the mainstream press, even when there were reputable sources outside government that could have introduced and supported them. Thus, the Washington consensus reigned, with the press acting alternately as the filter, amplifier, echo chamber, and adjustment mechanism.

Case Study: Public Opinion and the Case of the Iraq War It is still too early to be definitive about what the U.S.-led action in Iraq will mean for the future of Iraqis, for regional stability and for the security of the United States. The future of Iraq as a democratic state is not entirely clear – can the Iraqis transit into peaceful self-government or will they descend into civil war? It is interesting that in the buildup to the Iraq war, both the framing and indexing theories of communication can be applied to help explain American public opinion of the war. It is now known that officials in the Bush administration built a case for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It is also known that evidence disputing ongoing official claims about the war was often available to the mainstream press in a timely fashion. Yet the recurrent pattern, even years into the conflict, was for the 23

official government frame to trump evidence to the contrary in the news produced by mainstream news outlets reaching Americans. Several years into the conflict, public opinion finally began to reflect the reality of a disintegrating Iraq headed toward more civil war, with American troops caught in the middle and suffering drastic consequences. Unfortunately, that reckoning came several years too late to have had an impact on the cost of the war to the U.S. Cognitive scientists have found that the human brain works with frames and metaphors. We don’t think about facts necessarily, but rather, we think about the way those facts are framed. The mainstream media and the Bush Administration together framed various issues to sway public opinion and support the lead up to the Iraq war. One of the Administration’s successful frames was the “nation as a person” frame. The Bush camp managed to effectively frame Saddam Hussein in the media as the demon, or villain of the story. The Administration provided defamatory photographs for the media to insert into their news segments when referring to Hussein in order to draw the desired emotional reaction from the public. When France refused to join the United States and United Kingdom in the Iraq conflict, the government briefly demonized French President Jacques Chirac (Hiebert, 2003). News media across the country picked up on this negative frame and image of the French president. As a result, public opinion of France began to quickly turn sour. This was witnessed in parts of America where some even went as far as renaming French fries as “freedom fries”. This self-defense frame that the Administration set forth creates a narrative that includes both a hero and a villain. The villain (Saddam Hussein) is

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inherently evil and irrational, and if he cannot be reasoned with, the hero must defeat him. The frame focused on Saddam’s connection to Al Qaeda and terrorism, and the purported weapons of mass destruction. As the war progressed and weapons of mass destruction were not found, the Administration, and consequently the media, shifted the story from a defense frame to a rescue frame. The rescue frame focused on saving the Iraqi people from a cruel dictator and bringing democracy to the region. With little opposition or countervailing stories in the press, the Administration’s frame dominated the news and public support for the war initially prevailed. In the rest of the world, most people saw disconnects between the American version of the war and the reality they were presented with by their own governments, and the vast majority remained opposed (Hiebert, 2003). In his book, The Sorrows of Empire, Chalmers Johnson writes that in August 2002, Former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, told Tom Brokaw on NBC News that “There are Al Qaeda in Iraq.” On September 26, 2002, he said that the government had “bulletproof” confirmations of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda members. In an October 11, 2002 speech, President Bush said, “Some Al Qaeda leaders who fled Afghanistan went to Iraq.” But there was no evidence of actual links between Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden, a point often made by the CIA, and such cooperation would in any case have been implausible given Osama’s religious commitments and Saddam’s ruthlessly secular regime (Bennett, 2007). Bowing to the Administration’s frame, and being subjected to the “rally around the flag effect”, where journalists and elites alike

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support the president in times of conflict, the mass media distributed the Iraq frame the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, helped to solidify by his comments. Equally as interesting, as a result of the initial frame set by the Bush Administration in the lead up to the Iraq war, the mainstream media gave little attention to America’s central role in sponsoring Saddam Hussein in the 1980s. The Reagan and the Bush Senior Administrations not only tolerated but also aided Iraq’s leader in his use of chemical weapons and development of biological and nuclear capabilities during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88). These were the very weapons of mass destruction that the George W. Bush Administration cited as the central justification for attacking Iraq. Since Iraq’s chemical attacks on civilians fit the definition of terrorism, this arguably put the United States in the position of itself being a nation with a record of supporting terrorism. President Bush asserted that there was an argument based on rational self-interest for the choices his father’s Administration made during the Iraq-Iran war. Still, knowing this context could have altered the political environment – injecting realism into mainstream discourse about George W. Bush’s frame. However, the sway of dominant cultural schemas at every level of the cascading activation system makes it impossible for the major media to emphasize this kind of dissonant information (Entman, 2004). Public opinion is subject to framed interpretations that enter the fray where, just like other political communications, they may spread or fizzle depending on the motivations, strategies, and power of those playing the game. In 26

the lead up to the Iraq war many Americans felt supporting the President took precedence over supporting their own preferences. Whereas before the war started, about 60 percent said they preferred to continue working through the United Nations over going to war immediately, after the war began, 67 percent agreed that President Bush had given “international diplomacy enough time to work before taking military action against Iraq.” These findings suggest that public opinion actually revised itself retrospectively. By giving less salient attention to the anti-war arguments than to the pro-war the media were reflecting majority sentiments, as were the anti-war elites from both parties who failed to speak out against Bush’s decision (Entman, 2004). Jonathan Mermin, a critic of the media, characterizes the effects of the indexing phenomenon as “a clear violation of the watchdog ideal, as it is hard for the press to perform the watchdog function if politicians are granted the power to set the terms and boundaries of debate in the news” (Lehmann, 2005). Mermin accurately describes the scenario under which the mainstream press attempted to deliver news to the public in the months leading up to the war in Iraq. During this time, publicity and attention in the media focused on the Bush Administration’s claims that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and had connections to the terrorists who attacked the United States. Leading news organizations so emphasized those claims over available information to the contrary that two prestigious newspapers, The New York Times and The Washington Post, later issued apologies to their readers for having gotten so caught up in the inner workings of power in an administration determined to go

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to war that they lost focus on other views. Part of the reason the Iraq story was written much as the Bush Administration told it is that nearly every installment was well staged and fed expertly to reporters, or “indexed” to the Administration’s key message. It also helped that during the events leading up to the war the stories indexed by the Bush Team were effectively the only sustained official versions available in Washington. Plenty of other sources and bodies of evidence outside official Washington power circles could have been elevated to challenge the administration’s stories. However, those challenges either did not emerge aggressively or were reported only in passing because of the Administration’s tactics and the unwritten indexing rules followed by the mainstream press for selecting, emphasizing and sustaining stories (Bennett, 2007). One of the central examples that illustrates the fact that the press had limited capacity to challenge potentially questionable, but dominant, official accounts from high ranking Washington elites involves the allegation of links between the international terrorist organization Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, and between Saddam and 9/11. High Administration officials, including President Bush and Vice President Cheney, asserted those claims repeatedly even though little solid evidence was ever presented. Despite the available challenges to this core rational for the war promoted by the Bush Administration, the durability of the Saddam – Al Qaeda connection in public opinion polls continued years into the conflict. Just the right amount of reinforcements from high Administration sources and powerful elites continued to receive publicity from

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news organizations that were oddly ill-equipped to balance the false claims. A poll conducted in July 2006, more than three years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, found that 64 percent of Americans still believed that Saddam Hussein’s regime had strong ties with Al Qaeda – even though volumes of contrary information circulated just beyond, and sometimes even found its way into, the mainstream press (Bennett, 2007). Mainstream media effectively shaped American public opinion by cooperating, willingly or not, in an indexing model when reporting on events surrounding the war in Iraq.

Case Study: A Look At What Accounts For American Hostility Towards The United Nations When examining the two communication models of framing and indexing there is surprisingly little research applied to understanding the challenges the United Nations faces regarding American public opinion and how to overcome these obstacles. Available research indicates that the United States has significantly deepened the hole it had already dug for itself in international public opinion as a result of the U.S.-led action in Iraq. However, experts now believe that under the Obama Administration Washington is seeing renewed importance in cooperating with the UN in Iraq. Whether and how effectively the UN will be able to respond to this renewed importance could have a major impact on its future. (Heinbecker, 2004). The mission, role, and responsibilities of the United Nations have expanded substantially in recent decades. The organization seeks to confront the

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issues which former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, has identified as the three great challenges of our era: to ensure that globalization benefits the human race as a whole, not only its more fortunate members; to heal the disorder of the post-cold-war world, replacing it with peace and freedom; and to protect the rights and dignity of individuals, particularly women. The scope of the UN has gradually widened over the years in attempts to eradicate poverty and hunger, to prevent war and ease strife, to rectify injustice, and to restore failed states. The growing role of the UN has generated new multilateral conventions, treaties and regulations on issues ranging from terrorism and security to migration and refugees, crime, trade, human rights and environmental protection. Many key member states, such as the UK, Germany, France and Canada have visibly increased their support of the UN and its various agencies. Why then, if the United Nations is playing an increasingly important and a growing role on the international stage, does the American public maintain a negative opinion of it? Many vocal critics have questioned the performance of the United Nations, highlighting cases such as the failure of the Security Council to intervene effectively in Rwanda and Somalia, the breakdown of other initiatives such as peace-building in East Timor and the Oil for Food scandal concerning Iraq. There have been charges of corruption and misuse of funds by UN personnel. In response, the organization undertook a comprehensive reform process in 2006 aimed to improve its impact and effectiveness, including the high level panel on UN coherence, as well as changes in leadership under Ban Ki-Moon, the newly appointed Secretary-General. The growth in its scope and role raises important

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questions about how far the American public supports these changes. Analysis of attitudes towards the United Nations, as well as the broader context of public approval of development aid, is important from a policy perspective for the actors engaged in this process (Norris, 2006). Pippa Norris, the McGuire Lecturer in Comparative Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, explored important issues surrounding public attitudes towards the United Nations by focusing upon three indicators of public opinion derived from the World Values Survey 1981-2006 (WVS); confidence in the United Nations as an organization; support for multilateral solutions and agencies on issues such as refugees and human rights; and the expression of national identities. One dimension of orientation concerns support for the United Nations, monitored by the proportion that expressed a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the institution. The survey offered a broad range of responses from different nations, showing that there was a wide range of public opinion on this item across the world. The United States showed an average of 50.1 percent confidence, along the same lines as other industrialized countries like Canada at 65 percent and Great Britain showing 51.2 percent. Whereas in some of the Least Developed Nations (LDCs), notably Bangladesh, Uganda and Tanzania, there existed overwhelming confidence in the UN showing rates all above 80 percent. There are a number of plausible reasons Norris (2006) suggests for these contrasts, in particular the specific role of the UN in each country, whether the organization is seen as providing development assistance,

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enforcing peacekeeping and security, or even supporting democratic governance and human rights. Many other important factors could possibly shape broader attitudes and orientations towards the role of multilateral organizations, such as cultural traditions in the strength of nationalism within each society; the international role and military/economic power of each nation-state; and levels of international development aid received in recipient states. Norris (2006) concludes that the overall results of the WVS provides evidence that public opinion about the United Nations is responding to specific shifts in the role of the UN, associated with dramatic events, rather than secular changes. It can be inferred then, that during these dramatic events that take place across the world, each country’s mainstream media conglomeration report on the event using different methodologies and emphasizing different areas of focus, creating a varying of public opinion about the UN. U.S. policy towards the United Nations in recent years has embittered many people. Official U.S. attitudes, according to Heinbecker (2004), have never been so contemptuous. Richard Perle, the most vocal and visible of the neoconservatives, probably spoke for many in the Bush Administration about two possible benefits from attacking Iraq in 2003: the disappearance of Saddam Hussein and the end of the international organization – “Thank God for the death of the United Nations,” he wrote in the Guardian (Heinbecker, 2004). The World Values Survey shows that the United States’ confidence in the United Nations dropped from a high of 58 percent between 1999-2000 to 44 percent in 200532

2006. It is safe to say that this drop in confidence has a direct correlation to a dramatic event; the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and the way the American media portrayed the United Nations’ involvement in the decision to go to war. Until the threat that the Iraq debacle presented to the Bush Presidency became evident, key people in Washington made no effort to hide their impatience with a “nettlesome” UN. They believed U.S. security could be best, in fact only, ensured by U.S. military power. Nor were treaties or international law or the UN needed to convey legitimacy to U.S. action. The United States would have multilateral cooperation on its own terms or not at all. The American public was, at this point, subjected to the opinions of these powerful elites, who then, by way of Lance Bennett’s indexing phenomenon and relationships with top journalists and editors, made sure that their views and opinions were voiced loud and clear in the mainstream media (Heinbecker, 2004). On Iraq, Washington appeared to regard the UN as, at best, an instrument for rallying support for U.S. action and, at worst, an unhelpful artifact from another era. As UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix has noted, UN weapons inspectors were made particular objects of ridicule, which is all the more surprising given the extent to which U.S. and other intelligence services had depended on them over the years to corroborate third-party allegations. Throughout the latter part of 2002 and the beginning of 2003, a steady stream of criticism was directed at an institution that most other members considered to be central to their national interests. At no time did it seem to register in Washington that a large number of UN member states disagreed with the U.S. position that

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war was necessary and urgent and that that disagreement mattered (Heinbecker, 2004). When reporting on the Iraq war and the United Nations’ involvement the American media followed the frame that the Bush Administration had intended to set. The general frame used was one of an irritating United Nations’ hindering the right of the United States to protect itself from future attacks by proclaiming war on the terrorists at fault. Why did the media succumb to this frame? The story was being told by the Vice President of the United States himself – the kind of source to which journalists typically show deference in matters of national security and foreign relations. The Bush Administration was on a course to war, and the issue in the news was not whether the grounds for war were reasonable or honestly presented, but whether they would be opposed and thus derailed by Congress or the United Nations. The eventual failure to win support from the UN was insufficient to introduce serious challenges into the story, because the UN did not have, or was not perceived to have, the power to stop the Administration from attacking Iraq (Bennett, 2007). Once the media reported this frame it showed that this lack of power signaled to the American public that the United Nations was not an organization that the United States took seriously, or relied upon for guidance, approval or support during threats to national security. Although there has not been a significant amount of research conducted about the framing and indexing of the United Nations and how it affects American public opinion, it can be deduced that both communication theories have played a role in forming perceptions.

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Conclusions Opinion Leader Campaigns and How They Can Improve Support For The United Nations The above paper synthesizes the two communication models of framing/cascading activation and indexing and relates them to key issues in order to understand American public opinion about foreign policy and the United Nations. Both theories hold significant weight in the mainstream media and as a result help to explain how Americans understand issues. The strong relationships between Washington elites and top tier journalists cannot be underscored, at it is these relationships that play a pivotal role in shaping news stories and will continue to do so in the future. The Abu Ghraib scandal is an excellent example of how both the framing and indexing methods are put into action by the media, resulting in skewed American perceptions of the events that actually took place. In order to contest a frame, the opposing elite must have a high level of clout within the Washington sphere, enough to garner support from other elites who may be too afraid to challenge the administrations story. September 11 and the Iraq War proved to be an opportunity for President Bush and his cohorts to utilize their power to rally a country to go to war. The media followed the Administration’s lead and only in retrospect realized the great amount of stories they delivered to the public containing incorrect information and wrong “facts”. In times of extreme distress in a country, the “rally around the flag” phenomenon falls into full swing. This phenomenon is a concept used to explain increased popular support of the President of the United States during periods of crisis or war. The rally around the flag effect usually results in 35

reducing criticism of governmental policies that may normally receive it when the country is not in a crisis. The role that elites play in forming American public opinion is of great benefit to the Administration. Research has shown that American’s perspectives are heavily influenced by those elite voices they deem as experts in their fields. This phenomenon has some key implications for strategic communications, both for general foreign policy work but more specifically for the outlook of the United Nations. The American public currently has a somewhat tainted and negative image of the United Nations, much of which can be attributed to the administration in power as well as the mass media. In order restore the international organizations public perception; future research needs to be conducted in regard to opinion leader campaigns. To what degree can the United Nations engage opinion leaders to reach different audiences? The United Nations can also improve support by co-branding themselves even further with celebrity ambassadors, something that will resonate with the American public and restore confidence in the international organization. The United Nations needs to pay attention and focus more energy toward understanding the news coverage that surrounds the organization. However, because of the UN’s negative perceptions they operate at a disadvantage or weakened position in trying to influence the media. Journalists, for the most part, are already set in their normal indexing routines, turning to Congress for opinion and commentary instead of the United Nations if the two are involved in a dispute or discussion. This immediate indexing of Congress once again reinforces the view that the United Nations’ opinions are not as important as

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those of the Administration and Congress. The media’s frame turns to “How is Congress responding to the United Nations?” instead of “What does the United Nations think about these actions?” The United Nations needs to reexamine their strategic communication strategies and allocate more money to their media relations team. The fundamental question the UN needs to address is how the international organization can go around the framing and indexing models the news media use to set up their stories. A potential solution could be the recruitment of everyday opinion leaders and the use of celebrity ambassadors. Opinion leader campaigns can be used to catalyze wider engagement on issues surrounding the United Nations and to promote their goals and missions. The United Nations has not taken advantage of the special individuals across communities and social groups that can serve as vital go-betweens and information brokers, passing on messages about the United Nations and their work that speak directly to otherwise inattentive peers, coworkers and friends (Nisbet, 2009). Past scholars have understood the importance of opinion leaders in shaping public preferences, informing fellow citizens, and altering behavior. Certain individuals have been identified as paying closer attention to an issue, frequently discussing the issue, and considering themselves more persuasive in convincing others to adopt an opinion or course of action. In this two-step flow of communication opinion leaders do not necessarily hold formal positions of power or prestige in communities but rather serve as the connective communication tissue that alters their peers to what mattered among events, issues and choices 37

(Nisbet, 2009). In order for the United Nations to garner a positive image among the American public it will be beneficial to recruit these opinion leaders and hold local events, such as public forums, for communities to engage in and learn about issues. In addition to recruiting opinion leaders, the United Nations should focus on building relationships with top-tier journalists in Washington. If the UN can bypass the formalities of the media system by maintaining close relationships with some of the media-elite, it could potentially serve an opportunity to be turned to, not as a follow up source, but as a primary one, enabling the organization to get their message out. The UN should also focus on working closely with Congressional offices on international issues. The American public, by way of the “rally around the flag effect” tend to side with the Administration and Congress in times of crisis. By becoming more involved and familiar with Congress the UN will be looked at as a more credible source in American’s eyes. Finally, the UN must carefully navigate today’s media environment in order to shed a more positive light on their image. The organization should continue to expand on their work with celebrity ambassadors to raise awareness and bring attention about issues to audiences that would normally not have any interest with international concerns. Celebrities attract attention, they are household names, so they are in a position to focus the world’s eyes on the needs of others, both in their own countries and by visiting field projects and emergency programs abroad. Celebrity ambassadors can make direct representations to those with the power to effect change. They can use their talents and fame to fundraise 38

and advocate for issues and support the UN’s mission. American fascination with celebrity will only continue to rise. The United Nations can effectively alter their public image in the United States by continuing their work with celebrity goodwill ambassadors and by reaching out to local, everyday opinion leaders to persuade audiences around the country. These tactics will help the United Nations to improve its influence over the frames chosen by news journalists, resulting in more favorable coverage with an outcome of higher American public opinion.

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References Bennett, L., Lawrence, R. & Livingston, S. (2007). When The Press Fails; Political Power and The News Media From Iraq to Katrina. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Cory, Robert H. Jr. (1957). The Role of Public Opinion in United States Policies Toward the United Nations. International Organization Foundation, 220 – 227. Entman, Robert M. (2004). Cascading Activation: Contesting the White House’s Frame After 9/11. Political Communication, 415 – 429. Entman, Robert M. (2004). Projections of Power; Framing News, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Heinbecker, Paul. (2004). Washington’s Exceptionalism and the United Nations. Global Insights, Global Governance, 273 – 279. Hero, Alfred O. Jr. (1977). The United States Public and the United Nations. Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, 17 – 29. Hiebert, Ray Eldon. (2003). Public relations and propaganda in framing the Iraq war: a preliminary review. Retrieved November 14, 2009 from: http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/papers/vp01.cfm?outfit=pmt&folder=1259&paper=2 909 Lehmann, Ingrid A. (2005). Exploring the Transatlantic Media Divide over Iraq; How and Why U.S. and German Media Differed in Reporting on UN

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Weapons Inspections in Iraq, 2002 – 2003. The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 63 – 86. Lule, Jack (2002). Myth and Terror On The Editorial Page: The New York Times Responds to September 11, 2001. J&MC Quarterly Vol. 79, No. 2. Summer 2002, 275-293. Nisbet, Matthew C. and Kotcher, John E. (2009). A Two-Step Flow of Influence? Opinion-Leader Campaigns on Climate Change. Science Communication, 328 – 351. Norris, Pippa. (2006). Confidence in the United Nations: Cosmopolitan and Nationalistic Attitudes. World Values Conference Society, Politics and Values, 1 -31. Pettersson, Thorleif. (2002). Individual Values and Global Governance; A Comparative Analysis of Orientations towards the United Nations. Comparative Sociology, 439 – 463. Riker, William H. (1986). The Art of Political Manipulation. New Haven: Yale University Press.

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