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Criticism of the news media's performance in the months before the Iraq war has been profuse. Scholars, commentators, and journalists themselves have argued the media aided the Bush administration in its march to war by failing to air a wide-ranging debate that offered analysis and commentary from diverse perspectives. As a result, critics say, the public was denied the opportunity to weigh the claims of those arguing both for and against military action in Iraq. In this paper, we report the results of a systematic analysis of ABC and CBS nightly news coverage in the eight months before the invasion (Aug. 1, 2002 through March 19, 2003). We find news coverage conformed in some ways to the conventional wisdom: Bush administration officials were the most frequently quoted sources, the voices of anti-war groups and opposition Democrats were barely audible, and the overall thrust of coverage favored a pro-war perspective. But while domestic dissent on the war was minimal, opposition from abroadâ??in particular, from Iraq and officials from countries such as France, who argued for a diplomatic solution to the standoffâ??was commonly reported on the networks. While we surmise the opinions of foreign leaders would probably have been accorded less credibility by many Americans than the views of U.S. officials, the public was not entirely deprived of an alternative viewpoint. Our findings suggest that media researchers should further examine the inclusion of non-U.S. views on high-profile foreign policy debates, and they also raise normative questions about how the news filters the communications of political actors and refractsâ??rather than merely reflectsâ??the contours of debate. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large literature in political science and communications demonstrates that candidates and the news media can influence the importance voters ascribe to political issues. Little work, however, has sought to compare the agenda-setting influence of each group of actors -- candidates and journalists. Nor do scholars have a good understanding of how the ability of candidates to set the public's agenda varies in campaigns with different levels of candidate-media issue convergence, and whether certain individual-level characteristics, such as partisanship and trust in the media, make some people more susceptible to candidate or media influence. In this paper, I explore these matters with an experiment conducted during the early stages of the 2006 Texas gubernatorial election. I find the media to be more effective than candidates in affecting the salience individuals ascribe to political issues. Not surprisingly, the strongest effects emerge when news reports and campaign communications converge on the same agenda, suggesting the benefit to candidates when the media reflect their issue priorities. In addition, those with higher levels of trust in the media are slightly more susceptible to news effects, and Democrats appear somewhat more receptive to their candidate's preferred issue agenda. The findings point to the continued role of news coverage in shaping public opinion and the value in understanding the relationship between candidates and the media. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the dynamics of issue attention concerning candidate-media agenda congruence in U.S. presidential campaigns. Overview of the relevant literature on candidate and media behavior and the scholarly studies that have examined agenda congruence; Description of the content analysis of stump speeches and news coverage in presidential elections; factors which commonly intrude on presidential campaigns.

Research has provided some empirical support for the proposition that American presidential candidates prefer to campaign on the issues their party ?owns? (Petrocik 1996; Petrocik et al. 2003). Little, however, is known about the news media?s role in the issue ownership dynamic. Using a content analysis of television and newspaper coverage over the 1992, 1996, and 2000 presidential campaigns, this paper examines whether the media offer more favorable coverage on ?owned? vs. ?opposition? issues. The data show that journalists appear to provide better coverage for candidates when they stick to their party?s issues than when they wade into opposition territory. The differences in favorability of coverage are by no means enormous, but a noticeable pattern does emerge. The findings suggest the media reinforce pre-existing party advantages and play a role in shaping perceptions of the candidates? credibility on issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]