Media depictions of the Vietnam and Iraq wars

The purpose of the present study was to explore how the media frames news stories during times of war. A descriptive content analysis was conducted on print media from The New York Times and Time magazine to determine whether media frames during the first four years of Vietnam (1964-1968) and the Iraq War (2003-2007) are predominantly sensory or mythically framed. A sensory reality refers to our customary way of structuring the world around us, a relatively grounded sense of reality that is based in fact and used in evaluating the complexities of the world in relatively open-minded and non-dualistic ways. Conversely, mythic portrayals are characterized by a cultural narrative that employs emotionality to provide an unambiguous distinction between good and evil through clear designations of victimization, heroism, and villainy (Anker, 2005). The total sample size for this study was 1060 articles that were collected and coded for on a number of story dimensions, most notably, frame type, evaluative content and war stance. Additionally, for coverage specific to the Iraq War, the frequency and context with which either Vietnam and/or 9/11 was evoked was coded for.Results yielded a highly significant main effect of frame type, wherein across both wars and sources, the sensory frame clearly dominated media depictions. Sensory framed stories were most likely to be reporting on specific details of the war zone. Stories that were mythically framed were most likely to be categorizing dissenters as "unpatriotic" or drawing clear distinctions between in-groups ("us" "good guys") and out-groups ("them" "bad guys" "enemy"). Significant two-way and three-way interactions also emerged between war, source, and frame type. Lastly, regression analysis revealed that three story characteristics operate independently in predicting subsequent popular opinion away from favoring the Iraq War or George W. Bush's handling of said war---sensory framed story units, negative evaluative content, and references to 9/11. The implications to all findings, along with suggestions for future directions of study regarding agenda setting and framing effects during times of war are explored extensively.