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
I find the fact that the United States doesn’t even bother to keep an Iraqi civilian death count grotesquely disrespectful and wrong. I don’t think that anything could more clearly send the message that these innocent people are viewed as expendable. The rage this engenders, of course, falls most heavily on American soldiers who – all the hype and formal statements of praise aside – barely escape finding themselves in the same category.
This case study examines the extent of the congruity and usefulness of the media dependence model (MDM) and its synthesis of the indexing model (IM) and propaganda model (PM) in explaining Cable News Network’s (CNN) and CNN en Español’s coverage of the invasion of Fallujah, Iraq, during several key time periods during 2003–2004.
This study serves as an opportunity to introduce and evaluate a new and more robust model of news analysis than its previous counterparts on which it is partially based, in an attempt to address its relevance to the 21st-century realities of a globalized news media system owned by corporate conglomerates. Theoretically speaking, it seeks to answer whether broadcast news coverage of Iraq is more a case of indexed state–corporate propaganda, as the MDM would expect, or a display of media independence (Althaus, 2003), moving away from previous and well-documented official sourcing tendencies (Zaller and Chiu, 1996) during what is now a post-Cold-War era of potentially more ‘nuanced’ and ‘ambiguous’ news coverage (Entman, 2004). Indeed, it has been previously argued by Entman that critical models of news analysis were more appropriate for the bygone Cold War era (Entman, 2004: 4), as the news media in the post-Cold-War era has become more ‘cantankerous’, ‘ambiguous’ and ‘independent’ (Althaus, 2003; Althaus etal., 1996; Entman, 2004; Fico and Soffin, 1995; Livingston and Eachus, 1996). This case study is intended to give a thorough empirical assessment of the validity of the post-Cold-War argument of a purportedly more cantankerous and independent news media.
To be sure, there are other scholarly analyses on news media coverage of Fallujah, several of which have been published by this journal. The common thread between the conclusions of these studies is the finding of subservience to governmental sourcing. Schwalbe (2013) recently undertook a visual analysis of news media coverage and concluded that Time, Newsweek and the U.S. News and World Report contained visual content with a prominence of ‘government source-directed frames’. Lancaster (2008) compared both mainstream and independent news media coverage of Iraq and concluded that the latter were far less subservient to governmental sourcing domination, while Kellner (2008) found that war correspondents within emergent and digital media tended to outperform their mainstream counterparts in delivering more independent news and information from the frontlines. In an extensive international comparative analysis between US, British and German news coverage, US-based mainstream news sources were revealed to be less independent of pro-war positioning and official sources than their counterparts abroad (Zollmann, 2013).
This study will also measure the reliance (or lack thereof) on official sourcing, but with differing news sources than the studies above evaluated. Furthermore, this study will not exclusively measure potential press subservience. Instead, central research questions guiding this study also include whether the synthesis of the IM and PM results in useful analytical tools for a comparative media analysis; what the differences and/or similarities are between different language sources operating under the same corporate media conglomerate and the related implications for competing claims between the IM, PM and MDM; and, finally, what lessons can be learned for further developing the MDM in terms of resulting coverage patterns for several major broadcast news sources that collectively span two continents.
Postulating a new and more robust critical model of news analysis which addresses patterns of the most important agenda-setting news media could not be timelier than the current historical moment. The crisis to professional journalism which the American nation is currently witnessing is at an all-time high and journalism’s very existence is being threatened (McChesney and Nichols, 2009). Appropriately then, important and critical scholarship is identifying the roots of the crisis and proposing solutions to preserve journalism (McChesney, 2013; McChesney and Nichols, 2009; Pickard and McChesney, 2011), especially in light of how most observers uncontroversially view journalism as being nothing less than essential to the democratic ethos of society. Critical analysis reflecting on both the present-day and historical record is most needed to assure that a transition to the new digital era is not wrought by the same institutional and systemic weaknesses that the traditional US news media system contained in the past and continues to exhibit in the present. This, in fact, is the most important answer to the weighty ‘so what’ question often posted to academic research and its societal implications. Given the widely agreed upon view that journalism independent from governmental positioning is essential to having a functioning democracy, nothing less than the question of democracy is at stake.
These questions are also especially important in light of the corporate conglomerate framework of the new era of transnational media (Zhao and Schiller, 2001). Over three decades ago, Bagdikian (1983) alarmed communication researchers by alerting them that only some four dozen corporations owned the majority of the US news media and predicting that news media concentration would only restrict further and further as time progressed. Bagdikian’s prediction turned out to be impressively accurate, as the zenith of news media concentration was reached shortly after the turn of the century, when as few as five corporate conglomerates owned and controlled the majority of the US media (Bagdikian, 2004) and only nine conglomerates dominated international media holdings (McChesney and Schiller, 2003: 3). This unprecedented wave of media concentration was facilitated by a key piece of legislation that was passed, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (McChesney, 2000), which was the most important telecom initiative of the Clinton administration. Subsequently, critical scholars pointed towards conglomerate ownership as giving rise to an era of hyper-commercialism rife with fluff, celebrity-oriented reporting and gossip, style over substance, over-concentrated media and sensationalism (Bagdikian, 2004; Baker, 2002; McChesney, 2004). Few media scholars would question the merit of the idea that this hyper-commercial era persists right through the present.
News media concentration is one of the main reasons why an array of scholars have been concerned with and documented ownership influence over news content. Starting with a classic treatment by Gans (1979: 277), it has often been argued that journalists are limited by their unconscious internalization of the institutional constraints necessary to uphold the interests of corporate ownership (Baker, 2002: 899–900; Herman, 2000; Herman and Chomsky, 1988, 2002, 2008; Sparrow, 1999; Tompkins and Cheney, 1985). These scholars contend that constraints are not often transmitted as direct orders from above, but, instead, are a natural result of the culture that is brewed in accordance with the needs of the corporate conglomerate – as practised through journalistic norms and standards – all of which amount to institutional constraints on the extent to which journalists can report critically. A few others have documented more direct forms of ownership control and interventionism in accordance with corporate needs (Bagdikian, 2004; Chomsky, 1999, 2006; Gilens and Hertzman, 2000; Parenti, 1986; Thussu, 2004), but they remain in the minority compared to scholars who assume that the natural internalization by journalists of the necessary institutional constraints is more at work in determining content.
Political communication and indexing scholars have taken issue with the notion that constraints relating to corporate ownership are a strong factor at work in determining news content and have steered much more towards journalistic standards and norms as the chief explanatory variable (Bennett etal., 2007 179; Entman, 2004: 4; Hallin, 1994: 4, 13; Mermin, 1999: 149–150). The earliest incarnation of indexing referred to the phenomenon by which it was unnecessary for the New York Times editors to make explicit ‘policies that would ensure “all the news that fits” the interests of state and economy’ and, instead, posited that an ‘“indexing” norm’ accomplished just that. In this regard, some indexing scholars have missed the point that most researchers who have criticized ownership influence assume that internalization, as opposed to direct orders from above, is what occurs most often in terms of corporate needs being met (Herman and Chomsky, 2002: xii). Hallin (1994), however, has criticized notions of internalization as being a misguided theory of false consciousness about journalists, to which he does not afford merit. This case study seeks to move closer towards resolving this important and long-running, yet often under-emphasized, scholarly debate.
Some scholars have argued that corporate conglomerate media serves as the economic and cultural base of corporate globalization (McChesney and Schiller, 2003). One important aspect of this era has been the growing trend whereby such international divisions are increasingly seen within the same ranks of a given transnational corporate media conglomerate, with many such examples presently in operation (Time and Time International, Newsweek and Newsweek International, and CNN and CNN International). These important contemporary developments in the international communications arena raise questions that will also be addressed by this case-study, including whether international subsidiaries – in this case, CNN en Español – function independently of their conglomerate parents, in terms of their content and news media performance.
An extensive content analysis was undertaken for this study to accomplish several ends. First, this study intended to further develop the MDM and test competing claims between the IM and PM. A thorough content analysis has not been applied towards the PM and it was expected that insights gleaned from such an analysis could help the MDM obtain more nuance to its theoretical components on news coverage of individual abuses. The content analysis performed was not only done to evaluate competing claims between the IM and PM, but also to yield insights so as to further develop the MDM. The MDM’s synthesis of the PM and IM was also posited to obtain a more critically inclined analysis that would avoid some of the classist tendencies sometimes displayed in previous indexing studies. Indexing scholars have unfairly and disproportionately blamed journalists for news content (Bennett etal., 2007: 46, 70, 179; Mermin, 1999: 149–150), in spite of strong institutional constraints preventing content beyond such bounds, as evidenced by the victimization of journalists who made ill-fated decisions to go beyond such constraints (Börjesson, 2004, 2005; Kennis, 2012: 364). This case study was also meant to be an assessment of the presence of these constraints (or lack thereof).
The data findings from the coding also shed further light on the extent of similarities found in news content between two important corporate entities that are both part of the Time Warner media conglomerate. The results of the content analysis pointed to more similarities than differences in content from the CNN and CNN en Español, associated with newscast coverage of Fallujah. Accordingly, this article further argues that corporate ownership of broadcast news media is as important a determining factor of news content as any other influential variable. It is important to note that this argument directly clashes with a concept heavily favoured by media executives, which is that the news media simply delivers what its consumer audience desires. This study will demonstrate to the reader that familiar arguments made by media executives, duly supported by at least one important observer of the media (Massing, 2004), are not supported by facts relevant to the results of the content analysis of this case study.
Several critical tests are employed between the IM, PM and MDM, including the one just noted (i.e. institutional constraints operating, or not, on resulting coverage). The IM posits governmental attention as a more important variable for coverage distribution, while the PM does so with the worthy/unworthy victim dichotomy. Which one is stronger and/or are both at work? The MDM would expect that IM predictions on the matter will prove to have stronger explanatory power. The MDM itself is tested on its postulates and expectations on the added nuance of the worthy and unworthy victim dichotomy. Matters were found not to be as black and white as previous treatment by the PM has suggested.
This article is divided into several parts and two sections. In the first section, the study will direct its attention towards Fallujah and theoretical treatment of the MDM. The second section is dedicated to the content analysis that anchors this study, which concludes by contextualizing the resulting data and relating the findings back to the central research and theoretical questions of the study.
Section 1: Fallujah as an important case study, sources under consideration
US news coverage leading up to the invasion of Iraq has been almost universally acknowledged as fundamentally flawed and inaccurate, as even admitted by the two most influential daily newspapers in the United States (New York Times and Washington Post). What has not been as widely conceded, however, are the fundamental flaws that have persisted in news coverage during the occupation of Iraq following the fall of the regime of the former US ally, the late Saddam Hussein. This has been the case despite the fact that there has been more human suffering during the occupation than during the invasion. Indeed, far more civilians have died during the latter time period (Iraq Body Count).
In addition to the lack of critical analysis on media coverage of the occupation, there has also been a lack of scholarship comparing the differences (or similarities) in the manner that broadcast news sources operating under the same parent company, but distributed in different countries with different audiences, have covered Iraq. A widely cited comparative media analysis found fewer differences than expected between networks across national boundaries that it analyzed (Aday etal., 2005), though the study focused on news coverage during only the invasion phase (and not during the occupation phase looked at in this article and case study). This analysis attempts to build on those findings, but will approach the matter more critically, and will address two networks within the same conglomerate.
In this vein, CNN’s and CNN en Español’s respective prime-time news programmes, Newsnight with Aaron Brown and Panorama Mundial, were chosen as the sources under evaluation. The selection of these sources were purposeful so as to test the veracity of claims that audience tastes and preferences account for sharply differing content, versus the more sensible expectation of the PM, which would be that the ownership filter would restrict such differences, rather than expand them. Indeed, while the same media conglomerate parent company owns both CNN and CNN en Español, there are significant differences in audience demographics (including differences in public opinion tendencies on the war, more on this below) of both networks, which provide a desirable case to test for the apparent impact such differences have (or not) on news content. In this manner, there was a control for media ownership and a gained ability to assess whether corporate affiliates operating under the same media conglomerate showed significantly different news content.
News coverage of three important time periods from the flagship news programmes of CNN and CNN en Español will be analyzed by this study: the Spring 2003 period (1 April to 28 May 2003) when demonstrating Iraqi civilians in Fallujah were killed by US soldiers; the Spring 2004 period (1 March to 1 June 2004) when four Blackwater security contractors were killed in Fallujah; and finally, the Fall 2004 period (1 October to 30 December 2004) when the United States undertook its then most extensive incursion of Fallujah.
Section II: Surveying the Indexing, Propaganda and Media Dependence Models; Evaluating the synthesis of the IM and PM and further developing the MDM
The following section addresses the theoretical foundation of the MDM, IM and PM, while also treating the theoretical aspects of the resulting synthesis. Also addressed in this section are the original theoretical components of the MDM that go beyond the synthesis. The section continues on by sizing up resulting expectations in relation to this specific case-study. It will be followed up in subsequent sections by an empirical assessment based on a thorough content analysis.
The MDM
The name I have given to my own model of news analysis is the MDM. I chose this name to emphasize the chief failing of the US news media system: its reliance on corporate funding and ownership and the unfortunate result of this structure leading to a lack of independence from Washington (the White House and key Congressional leaders) and Wall Street (Madison Avenue and the public relations industry) positioning.
The MDM is a critical, institutional analysis of US news content, which contains a number of predictions about news media performance. The model expects that these predictions will continue within US news media performance as long as its primary structural and institutional characteristics remain. The predictions that the MDM makes of patterns in US news content serve as a foundation of critical analysis of its primary institutional characteristics, as the MDM demonstrates how these characteristics are most responsible for a general lack of independence from policies espoused by the most powerful governmental and corporate officials in the country. The MDM illustrates how the news media lacks the most independence when it comes to macro-oriented issues, such as US foreign, military, and international monetary policy (Kennis, 2012). The case of Fallujah squarely fits within this rubric, as an example of US foreign military policy.
The MDM draws significantly from a synthesis of the propaganda (Herman and Chomsky, 1988, 2002, 2008) and IMs (Bennett, 1990; Bennett etal., 2007), but the scope of the MDM goes beyond these two well-tested analyses. To the same extent that the MDM is a synthesis, it also contains important theoretical components that have been gleaned directly from the findings and lessons learned from originally undertaken case studies (Kennis, 2012) as well as from past scholarly work. Most importantly, the MDM shows how the following original theoretical arguments take place in US news media performance: It shows how some social movements are deemed worthy by the news media, while others are ‘unworthy’ (Kennis, 2009); it distinguishes between foreign and domestic news reporting by modeling domestic coverage and showing how foreign affairs coverage suffers more from a lack of independence than domestic topics (Kennis, 2015, forthcoming); and the MDM accounts not only for general trends where independent news content is lacking but also addresses the conditions and instances in which exceptions are most likely to arise (Kennis, 2012). Of most relevance to this case study, the MDM is tested on its predictions that ownership of the news media will act as an influence on news content in a manner appropriate for the age of globalization, with specific expectations that the ownership variable will be found to be as powerful an institutional filter of news content as any other. This original postulate will be explored in depth below, but first a survey of both the PM and IM will be undertaken, followed by an analysis of the theoretical strengths and weaknesses of the synthesis upon which the MDM is partially based.
The Propaganda Model
The PM’s main postulate is that the structural characteristics of the mass media results in five content filters that limit the ability of the elite print media to be independent from the state-corporate interests to which they are beholden (Herman and Chomsky, 1988, 2002, 2008). However the crux of the model, and what is most relevant to this study, is the PM’s worthy/unworthy victims thesis, which posits that the institutional structure of the news media results in a filtration process that dichotomizes news media coverage of important elections, atrocities, massacres and wars in a manner that is in line with the interests of the White House: A propaganda system will consistently portray people abused in enemy states as worthy victims, whereas those treated with equal or greater severity by its own government or clients will be unworthy. The evidence of worth may be read from the extent and character of attention and indignation … the U.S. mass media’s practical definitions of worth are political in the extreme and fit well the expectations of a propaganda model. While this differential treatment occurs on a large scale, the media, intellectuals, and public are able to remain unconscious of the fact and maintain a high moral and self-righteous tone. This is evidence of an extremely effective propaganda system. (Herman and Chomsky, 2002, p. 37)
Put more simply: “What is on the agenda in treating one [unworthy or worthy victims] case will be off the agenda in discussing the other” (2002, pp. 34-35).
In terms of sourcing tendencies for cases involving unworthy victims, Herman and Chomsky explain that “we would expect official sources of the United States and its client regimes to be used heavily – and uncritically – in connection with one’s own abuses and those of friendly governments” (2002, pp. 34–35). The volume and the quality of coverage are factors that characterize unworthy victims, as “evidence of worth may be read from the extent and character of attention and indignation” (2002, p. 37). As for worthy victims, the exact opposite is expected in all regards: extensive detail, significant humanization, potential contextualization that can garner sympathy, and unofficial sources being prominently featured and trusted.
The Indexing Model
Lance Bennett posited the “indexing hypothesis” as a means to explain U.S. press-state relations and thus also, media performance (1990, p. 103). Bennett’s quite testable hypothesis on press-government relations was the following: “Mass media news professionals, from the boardroom to the beat, tend to ‘index’ the range of voices and viewpoints in both news and editorials according to the range of views expressed in mainstream government debate about a given topic” (p. 106).
The indexing hypothesis thus posits that news dissent from the White House will be indexed according to official dissent in Washington, and that when such dissent is absent, it is the responsibility of the news media to cite other voices of dissent that counter the White House foreign policy line. When the indexing hypothesis is evidenced in instances that lack official dissent from the White House foreign policy line and no other voices of dissent are included to compensate for this absence, this is an example of how “the indexing norm” is being waged “at the expense of the democratic ideal” (p. 113). To Bennett, indexing is only acceptable when there is elite disagreement in Washington as the news media will then reflect such dissent, thereby fulfilling its responsibilities.
Bennett wrote that he expected the indexing norm to appear more prominently amongst issues involving, “military decisions, foreign affairs, and macroeconomic policy – areas of great importance not only to corporate economic interests but to the advancement of state power as well” (1990, p. 22). In this vein, Bennett predicted that “foreign affairs and monetary policy,” will have a limited range of “social voices,” while other issues such as “civil liberties and ‘pocketbook’ economics” will have a broader range of social voices in sourcing tendencies (1990, p. 107). Indeed, during the two decades that have passed since Bennett first posited the indexing hypothesis, a whole range of indexing studies have long since advanced this initial hypothesis into a full-blown model (Bennett etal., 2007, p. 63), including work revealing how criticism is limited and shaped by domestic officials (Alexseev and Bennett, 1995; Bennett and Manheim, 1993; Dorman and Livingston, 1994; Eilders and Lüter, 2000; Nacos, 1990; Zaller and Chiu, 1996) and tends more toward a procedural variety, than a substantive one (Entman and Page, 1994; Hallin, 1986, 1994; Hertog, 2000; Mermin, 1996). The most comprehensive evaluation of indexing to date, however, remains an extensive study undertaken by Mermin (1999). Therein, many of indexing’s most important expectations were validated.
The implications of indexing are important, as Bennett wrote, “Evidence supporting the indexing hypothesis would suggest that the news industry has ceded to government the tasks of policing itself and striking a democratic balance” (1990, p. 106).
PM’s strengths and IM’s weaknesses
One of the chief strengths that the PM offers to the IM is how to address the selective applicability of sourcing tendencies via the ‘worthy and unworthy victims’ thesis. Indexing does not address, much less evaluate, this distinct and documented tendency. Conversely, the PM has used comparative analysis to illustrate systematic patterns in terms of how sourcing tendencies and the resulting tone of coverage have correlated with the kind of political relations that the United States holds with its foreign clients and adversaries. Indexing has nothing to say about how the news media systematically switches to the use and dependence of unofficial sources for coverage of atrocities and abuses in states that are adversarial with the United States. The comparative analysis and selective applicability of sourcing is a crucial theoretical contribution that the PM provides in its key link with indexing.
The PM utilizes corporate criticism, which appropriately locates the root of the weaknesses found in the US news media. As indexing does not contain an economic analysis, it falls into the same trap from which so many other analyses of news coverage have suffered: its recommendations, solutions and suggestions to solve the weaknesses and problems of the news media centre on journalists (Mermin, 1999: 150) and/or the sociology of the newsroom (Schudson, 2003). These analyses, however, overlook key power differences between journalists and editors, editors and publishers and, finally, between publishers and advertisers. A smooth functioning propaganda system, however, serves to obfuscate such institutional limits by having workers with as limited power as journalists, and also the editors and publishers they answer to, internalize the values and interests of the owners and funders of their commercial businesses. Such businesses are often transnational corporate conglomerates or their subsidiaries. In this manner, the PM significantly compensates for a glaring and classist theoretical weakness found in indexing.
IM’s strengths and PM’s weaknesses
By including the presence or lack of a consensus in Washington among important policymakers as a factor of analysis, indexing helps explain how volume of coverage can differ across time even on the same topic, especially when positioning changes in Washington. The PM does not account for such shifts, while, conversely, this remains one of indexing’s central foci.
Methodologically, the frequent use of content analysis by indexing helps capture some of the nuances that the model lacks. For instance, the model does not address the relative differences between unworthy victims and worthy victims. Most strikingly, it cannot clearly classify where US soldiers killed in combat fall in terms of being worthy or not. In several chapters on Vietnam, Herman and Chomsky do not address this point. The content analysis in this study seeks to clarify the differences between those who are clearly unworthy victims (i.e. Iraqi civilians) and those who are less clearly unworthy victims (i.e. US soldiers) and whose status actually can fluctuate according to government attention brought to the matter.
The MDM and the synthesis
Despite the large scope of the case studies already evaluated by the IM and PM, none of these case studies tested, much less proposed, a synthesis of both models. That is precisely what this case study will set out to accomplish, as the example of a US military intervention (Fallujah in 2003 and 2004) and coverage of that intervention will be analyzed in this study.
The MDM draws upon the PM by showing how the news media’s main structural characteristics result in a number of filters that significantly impact news content. The MDM breaks the filters down to two categories: institutional and journalistic standards, with the former impacting the latter. The two institutional filters, corporate ownership (i.e. media conglomerates or corporate-owned entities that dominate the news media) and advertising (also disproportionately corporate), result in subsequent filters impacting and distorting journalistic standards (or news norms) in ways that go beyond conventional principles for the profession. Furthermore, components of the MDM also expect there to be continued patterns of unworthy and worthy victims in accordance with the type of relations that a country from which the given victim hails has with Washington, largely dictating subsequent news content (Kennis, 2012: 118).
The IM shows how the extent of criticism that appears in the news will be highly dependent on the presence (or lack thereof) of debate between major party officials in Washington. If there is more inter-party strife between high-ranking officials in Washington, a potential for more criticism in the news will exist (and vice versa). Media scholars have identified two types of criticisms that appear in news content: procedural and substantive. Procedural criticism calls into question only the execution of a certain policy or predicts failure in terms of the outcome of policy. Conversely, substantive criticism questions the fundamental basis of policies and sometimes conveys moral judgements against such policies. The MDM is consistent with the IM in its expectations of substantive criticism to be sorely missing in the news and, indeed, this is one of the variables that is measured and evaluated in this case study.
There are both key points and major components, however, which illustrate how the MDM goes beyond a simple synthesis of the IM and PM. Those original components are illustrated in the ensuing expectations of the MDM for this case study.
Content analysis expectations of Fallujah coverage
Was the content within the bounds expected of a corporate media conglomerate, including the content of a network subsidiary (CNN en Español)? Were there significant official sourcing tendencies and a minimal presence of substantive criticism? The hypotheses related to the synthesis of the IM and PM, as well as the MDM, are laid out below.
Hypotheses
Sourcing
It is true that the IM, PM and MDM all strongly posit a dominance of official sourcing. However, an added complexity is present in this study in terms of its comparative basis between CNN and CNN en Español. This is purposeful as it is meant to serve as an opportunity to test the means with which the MDM attempts to resolve a theoretical conflict between the IM and PM in terms of differing explanations for a lack of independent news media performance.
Given the sharply differing stances taken on by Latin American governments and the Bush administration stance, if prevailing journalistic professional standards and norms explain coverage more thoroughly, there will be significant sourcing differences between the two networks. In spite of the differing stance that Latin American governments had on the Iraq war, they will be sourced in accordance with professional norms and standards. This would squarely be the expectation of the IM.
However, if the ownership filter and the institutional constraints that the MDM favours as having a larger impact on news content are in place, sourcing differences will be minimal and the parent CNN network’s allegiances to US sourcing tendencies will carry over into CNN en Español. While the PM similarly favours institutional constraints, it has never been theorized or tested in accordance with multinational TV network coverage and its subsidiaries. Thus, this is a crucial test of the MDM’s contention that institutional constraints are more pervasive than professional standards of journalism and that such standards will collapse when in conflict with overriding institutional interests. It is also a step towards theorizing global, conglomerate-owned TV networks and the argument associated with the MDM that subsidiaries will not display a significant level of news media independence when it comes to macro-oriented issues, such as war reporting.
Volume of coverage
Another key test will be with news coverage distribution between the three time periods and whether such distribution reflects differing levels of governmental concern and attention to the matter or the unworthy/worthy victim dichotomy. The three time periods included the Spring 2003 period (1 April to 28 May 2003), which consisted of low governmental attention and unworthy victims; the Spring 2004 period (1 March to 1 June 2004), which consisted of high governmental attention and worthy victims; and, finally, the Fall 2004 period (1 October to 30 December 2004), which consisted of high governmental attention and unworthy victims.
The MDM attempts to resolve the empirical tension between expectations of volume of coverage by the IM and PM by favouring the variable of governmental attention as being stronger than that of worthy and unworthy victim expectations (Kennis, 2012: 125, 127–128).
Humanization
The case of the US soldiers is a complicated one and is expected to produce mixed results in terms of the extent of humanizing details present in the newscasts analyzed herein. Without significant public pressure to end the occupation and corresponding allies who had significant power in Congress, and instead with a Presidential administration which was resolutely in favour of continued occupation, humanizing details for US soldiers should be higher than that of Iraqi civilians, but still lower than that of worthy counterparts (US military contractors and foreign civilians).
Unlike the IM, the MDM theorizes worthy and unworthy victims. However, the MDM is also different from the PM in the sense that it nuances the unworthy and worthy victim dichotomy, adding levels of complexity to differing types of victims along with differing levels. Were these differing levels of worthiness in place in news content? The resulting data of the analysis will help the MDM paint a more nuanced picture of the extent of victimization and related sympathies (or lack thereof) in news content.
Substantive criticism
In the case of substantive criticism, there is a strong expectation for a lack of criticism in light of the lack of debate in Washington. Similar to the sourcing comparison, this test also serves as an opportunity to evaluate the means by which the MDM resolves the tension between the IM and PM. If substantive criticism was related more to professional standards than institutional constraints, there would be substantially higher levels of as much present in CNN en Español’s coverage, given its responsibility to source the high level of official governmental opposition in Latin America. But if a higher allegiance is shown to corporate institutional constraints, such standards would not apply for coverage results. The MDM expects differences to be muted to non-existent and that a lack of substantive criticism will ultimately win out even in CNN en Español’s coverage. However, to the extent that there are exceptions in CNN en Español’s coverage, the MDM would not expect such exceptions to be duplicated as often in CNN’s coverage, due to its closer proximity and dependence on sourcing by influential US officials.
The categories for the hypotheses just elaborated above guided the content analysis that served as the bedrock for this investigation: coverage distribution between the three time periods, sourcing tendencies, the extent of both substantive criticism and of the humanization employed for the victims of occupation. They are coupled with related results and findings, also illustrated in a number of tables in the second section of this article.
Section III: Content analysis results: Coverage distribution
The results of the news coverage distribution for both networks supported the main components and postulates of the MDM. Expectations for the MDM in this key test were that governmental attention would prove to be a more reliable indicator of volume of coverage than unworthy victims (IM), but that worthy victims would still hold some weight in terms of generating coverage (PM), supporting the desirability of a synthesis between the two models (MDM).
Both networks clearly and significantly favoured coverage of the two incursions in 2004, which had a strong official pretext supported by the media’s cooperation in classifying the military contractors as civilians. This coverage allotment sharply contrasts with that of the abuses of Iraqi civilians in 2003, which were lacking such a pretext.
When the coverage breakdown is looked at in even greater detail, expectations are shown to have been met even further. For example, 32 of the 34 broadcasts that covered the Fallujah story in CNN’s Spring 2004 coverage fell after the killings of the military contractors. This was in spite of the fact that a full third of the coverage period included the time before the killings (1–31 March), yet this period garnered no more than 5.9 per cent of the resulting coverage on Fallujah. In CNN en Español’s case, the matter was even starker, as not even one story on Fallujah appeared in the news coverage during the whole month of March until the military contractors were slain. Coverage thereafter, however, sharply increased as 25 broadcasts covered Fallujah. Such distribution clearly illustrates the favouring of governmental attention and worthy victims being present, as opposed to mere fatalities of less worthy victims (the period beforehand), which also attracted less governmental attention.
As a result, by the end of April 2004, Fallujah had been depicted to millions of viewers of CNN in both English and Spanish as an important area of focus and newsworthy coverage, but only after the slaying of the military contractors, as opposed to before, when it was Iraqi civilians who were the main victims in question. As the MDM would fully expect, coverage concurred with a time that government officials had much more to say about Fallujah following the slaying of worthy victims, including near-universal condemnation by a plethora of high-ranking US officials, both in the military and from the White House. Indeed, officials now had what became an oft-repeated pretext for the incursions of Fallujah in 2004 versus the lack of such an official pretext for the abuses of 2003. Such results were seen for both networks, when compared to the previous time period.
The gained official pretext that the slayings of the military contractors provided for important public officials catapulted their worthy status that much further, as did the lack of concern for attention to their deaths possibly resulting in a depiction of a losing war effort. After all, the contractors were not soldiers and their deaths, as well as the manner in which they were killed, were unusual and could be depicted as such. This is why their level of worthiness was higher than that of US soldiers.
More specifically, support was also lent to the MDM’s emphasis of the strengths of indexing in terms of volume of coverage expectations. The Spring 2004 period featured governmental attention and coincided with the time that worthy victims were slain, but the Winter 2004 period did not feature a time in which worthy victims were featured and, instead, it only featured governmental attention (as confirmed by database research conducted, which found as many Presidential news conferences given on Fallujah (American Presidency Project, 2003)), thus making it a key test of an original MDM component. Governmental attention alone proved sufficient to garner comparable coverage in terms of CNN en Español’s allotment, and even more coverage in terms of CNN’s distribution, despite the lack of worthy victims being present. This was a key finding and suggests that indexing’s strength as a more reliable predictor of news coverage complements the PM’s weakness of depending solely on the presence (or lack thereof) of worthy (more coverage) or unworthy victims (less coverage). The PM alone, for instance, would not expect as much coverage to be given to a time period that did not prominently feature worthy victims (as was the case for the third time period). The MDM departs from this expectation and favours governmental attention as a stronger predictor of news attention.
In spite of these results sharply favouring indexing’s predictive abilities in terms of volume of coverage, the second time period (Spring 2004 and with a presence of worthy victims) still garnered significantly more coverage than the first time period (Spring 2003 and without a presence of worthy victims) for both networks. The Spring 2003 time period, which featured Iraqi civilian casualties more than any other, only garnered scant attention from both networks. Neither network covered the 2003 time period with even a fraction of the volume of coverage dedicated to either equivalent time period in 2004. Thus, the lack of worthy victims present still accounts for some explanatory power for resulting news content, just not as much as governmental attention.
To be sure, both the Spring 2004 and Winter 2004 time periods featured significant levels of governmental attention, especially in terms of White House attention (the MDM expects the press to disproportionately attend to what only the most important public officials say and do). Conversely, the Spring 2003 period did not. For the Spring 2003 time period, there were no publicly voiced statements on Fallujah. Only Ari Fleischer, the White House press secretary, mentioned Fallujah one time to the press on his own accord, when he criticized alleged Baath party loyalists for a grenade attack against US soldiers on 1 May 2003 (American Presidency Project, 2003). In the Spring 2004 and Winter 2004 periods, however, there were over 53 instances where Fallujah was mentioned at least once among Presidential remarks, Presidential news conferences and press briefings. Presidential news conferences where Fallujah was mentioned by President Bush at least once were evenly split between the Spring 2004 and Winter 2004 periods at three apiece. There were nine instances where Fallujah was mentioned at least once in Presidential remarks during the Spring 2004 period and seven in the Winter 2004 period. In so far as the chief policymaker of the Iraq occupation was concerned, attention to Fallujah was essentially comparable between the Winter and Spring 2004 periods (especially in light of the campaign season having fallen throughout the Spring 2004 period, but not in the Winter 2004 period) and far more than in the Spring 2003 period, which never mentioned Fallujah, aside from the Fleischer comment (American Presidency Project, 2003).
In sum, the results of the study pointed strongly towards governmental attention, as opposed to solely the worthy and unworthy victims’ dichotomy (PM), as being the stronger of the two factors determining news coverage allocation.
Content analysis results: Sourcing
CNN sourcing
As expected by all three models (IM, PM and the MDM), CNN’s sourcing tendencies displayed a strong deference towards high-level US officials (see Table 1).
News Coverage Distribution for Primetime CNN & CNN en Español Coverage on Fallujah.
CNN en Español showed similar tendencies to CNN, but was slightly less marked towards official sources than CNN was in its coverage (see Table 2). Expectations were met for the MDM in this category and even surpassed, in terms of foreign sourcing tendencies. As defined in the coding scheme, foreign sources were defined as any governmental or official source, but with a nationality other than the United States. While Latin American governmental sourcing was expected to be minimal, there was not one Latin American governmental official sourced in any of CNN en Español’s coverage and, in fact, not one instance of even a Latin American person ever appearing in the coverage of Fallujah. Instead, Iraqi officials, many of whom were either appointed or influenced by the US occupation authorities, dominated the foreign sources. They comprised 58 per cent of the total space allocated to foreign sources (more than any other nationality), and among five other nationalities that were foreign sourced, they were present in 46 per cent of the stories that had foreign sources in them (also more than any other nationality). As for the other foreign officials, important US allies such as the United Kingdom and Japan (24% of total foreign sourced volume and a presence in 31% of foreign stories) were present in twice as many stories with foreign sources and almost in twice as much of the volume as more officials from France and Iran (13% of total foreign sourced volume and a presence in 15% of foreign stories), which had policies more critical of the occupation. Including British and Japanese sources along with the Iraqi officials accounts for even more dramatic figures, as 8 per cent of the total volume for foreign sources and 85 per cent were not dedicated towards countries with clearly critical policies towards the occupation.
CNN: Sourcing distribution.
69% of these ties were three-way ties, with many having resulted from no attributed sourcing present in the story; 28% of the ties were between official and unofficial sourcing, with just 3% of the ties involving foreign sources.
CNN en Español’s sourcing tendencies diverged from that of CNN’s, whereby foreign sources were used more often, though in both cases, they comprised no more than one-sixth of the total space allotted to sources. Foreign sources were still used almost three times as often as CNN’s sparse utilization of foreign sources, but the most important comparative finding was an omission, as no Latin American government official was ever sourced in any news coverage of Fallujah that was coded for both networks. Furthermore, among the foreign sources that were used, a strong deference was paid towards officials from allied countries with the United States (i.e. Iraq, the United Kingdom and Japan) over that of countries that were more critical towards the occupation (i.e. France and Iran). In this sense, the MDM’s expectations were not only met but surpassed.
More questions persist beyond sourcing, however. Did official sourcing domination and lessened use of unofficial sources in both of the networks result in similar levels of substantive criticism? Or, did the foreign sourcing differences account for subsequent differences in this category? One of the key tasks of the MDM is to also assess the extent of independence from the government and one important measure of this is the extent of substantive criticism present.
Content analysis results: Substantive criticism
Substantive criticism was the category with the most identical results between the two networks, reflecting a strong correlation of institutional constraints. Just fewer than 80 per cent of all newscast stories were without any substantive criticism in CNN’s prime-time Fallujah coverage, as only 26 of 122 newscast stories aired any substantive criticism. Similarly, for CNN en Español’s prime-time Fallujah coverage, almost three-fourths of all newscast stories were without any substantive criticism (9 of 34 newscast stories). Most stories that contained criticism on CNN en Español only contained one mention of substantive criticism, a result reflecting the glaring omission of Latin American sourced–criticism, as not one Latin American official voice, much less unofficial, was found in any coverage of Fallujah.
In short, both networks showed remarkably similar low levels of substantive criticism, reflecting the consensus strongly present in Washington on Iraq policy. These results fulfil the MDM’s expectations for prevailing institutional constraints to win out over journalistic norms. If journalistic standards were more at work in determining content, CNN en Español would have prominently sourced Latin American governmental officials in accordance with well-established norms. The fact that this did not occur at all is a strong indication that institutional constraints were at work and that the MDM’s deference towards the PM, as opposed to the IM, is correct in this regard.
Content analysis results: CNN humanization
Proportional to the allotment of coverage worthy victims received, there was more than twice as much humanizing coverage in comparison to what unworthy victims garnered on CNN. Well over two-thirds of either stories or total coverage allotment for the US military contractors contained some or both types of humanizing details in the coverage of their casualties, a figure that led all other casualty person types.
The PM’s general expectations were met for CNN’s coverage in terms of worthy and unworthy victims. However, the new expectation that the MDM hypothesized on US soldiers was also met (the PM does not include expectations for US soldiers), as results showed that casualties were depicted in a less unworthy manner than other victims, thus garnering its ‘slightly unworthy’ designation. This reflects the ambiguous and more pliable status of US soldiers in press depictions.
Representative John Murtha’s proposal for a phased-in troop redistribution was widely (and correctly) seen as the first official display of opposition from within Washington to the occupation. However, this small and modest beginning of a period of conflict within Washington on Iraq policy did not occur until November 2005, well after the period of coverage reviewed. Thus, during a time of governmental consensus, US soldiers are expected to get slightly less sympathy, but more sympathy than other unworthy counterparts. Results reflected this expectation and provided support for the MDM’s original attempt to further nuance and develop the unworthy/worthy dichotomy, including the addition of person types and related expectations therein (Tables 3 and 4, with significantly high numbers highlighted in dark grey, and significantly low numbers highlighted in light grey).
CNN en Español: Sourcing.
57% of these ties were between official and unofficial sources, meaning that foreign sourcing for these stories was less than official and unofficial sourcing; three-way ties accounted for 28.6% of all ties, while ties involving foreign sources were only 14% of total ties.
CNN Newsnight: Humanization for unworthy victims on CNN by volume.
Paragraph totals measure the extent to which each casualty person type was referred to in each story. That is the basis for all ensuing percentages listed in this table, which represent the percentages of total paragraphs for each category.
Percentage figures in casualty person type rows are percentages of stories within each respective person type.
The most noteworthy results in terms of the way CNN en Español coverage humanized victims included several exceptional results for Iraqi civilians and insurgents. As a result of three broadcast stories filed by an unembedded reporter (29 April 2003; 15 November 2004; 16 November 2004), more humanizing details emerged for Iraqi civilians and insurgents than the MDM would have expected.
These exceptions were not significant enough, however, to alter the overall sympathetic emphasis directed towards worthy victims as opposed to unworthy victims. Whether measured by sheer volume (65.4%) or the frequency of story appearances (67.6%), unworthy victims received significantly less airtime mentioning humanizing details than instances that mentioned these casualties without any such details (Tables 5 and 6). Furthermore, all other expectations were met in terms of individual results, as other unworthy victims (US military and Iraqi security) received far less humanizing treatment than their worthy counterparts (foreign civilians and the US military contractors). Last, but not least, when the three exceptional stories are not included in the calculations, the results significantly change: Iraqi civilians then garner less humanizing details (only 45.4%) and insurgents are left without any humanizing details.
CNN Newsnight: Humanization for worthy victims on CNN by volume.
Paragraph totals measure the extent to which each casualty person type was referred to in each story. That is the basis for all ensuing percentages listed in this table, which represent the percentages of total paragraphs for each category.
Percentage figures in casualty person type rows are percentages of stories within each respective person type.
CNN en Español: Humanization for unworthy victims by volume.
Paragraph totals measure the extent to which each casualty person type was referred to in each story. That is the basis for all ensuing percentages listed in this table, which represent the percentages of total paragraphs for each category.
Percentage figures in casualty person type rows are percentages of stories within each respective person type.
CNN en Español: Humanization for worthy victims by volume.
Paragraph totals measure the extent to which each casualty person type was referred to in each story. That is the basis for all ensuing percentages listed in this table, which represent the percentages of total paragraphs for each category.
Percentage figures in casualty person type rows are percentages of stories within each respective person type.
Public opinion
The most significant finding in this article is that the differences between CNN en Español and CNN were much less than the similarities. Given the ownership filter of the PM, CNN en Español’s proclivity to not utilize sourcing of Latin American governments in opposition to the war is easily explained and actually well within the purview of the PM’s expectations. Time Warner, the parent company and conglomerate of both CNN networks, does not stand much to gain in terms of adopting a lenient and costly sourcing approach involving anti-imperialist, Latin American–based administrations. This would potentially offend its mostly US-based sourcing base and possibly result in a lack of subsequent access to the type of source it depends on the most. The dubiousness of accepting the media executive line of being a ‘window to the world’ (Meehan, 2005: 1) that ‘gives people what they want’ (McChesney, 2000: 198) was called into question in light of polling figures and survey data taken from 2004, which instead pointed towards the impact that the ownership filter had in Fallujah coverage.
However, the question remains: What theoretical implications do these similarities have for the MDM’s expectations on institutional constraints prevailing over journalistic standards and norms in terms of their influence on news content? The answer is ‘large ones’, in light of the fact that the two networks have vastly differing audiences. CNN’s audience in Canada and the United States is a far cry from CNN en Español’s tendencies towards a bilingual, upper-crust demographic ranging across national boundaries and both the North and South American continents. If audience tastes and preferences were at work in deciding news content, presumably content tendencies should have been different and quite marked between these networks.
Strong similarities between the two networks in terms of content, however, do not alone prove a causal relationship between institutional constraints and related news content. Additional data should be consulted and public opinion needs to be taken into consideration as well. After all, if public opinion was sharply on the side of government and the news was simply reflecting this, uncritical content tendencies between both networks could simply be said to have democratically reflected public sentiment. Was this indeed the case?
Consultation of a few of the key polls undertaken during 2004 suggests that public opinion was not clearly on the side of the White House when it came to Iraq and even arguably against it. While this was not a comprehensive survey of public opinion, such a survey was not necessary, as the presence (or lack) of full-fledged public support was being assessed, as opposed to a complex measurement of an exact level of public opinion.
In mid-March, a poll conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center revealed that more Americans felt the war was not worth it and disapproved of the way in which the President was handling the war, than those who felt otherwise (National Annenberg Election Survey, 2004a). By the next month, figures from the same source for both of those questions showed an 8 per cent increase in the ranks of the opposition to the war and were clearly over a simple majority (National Annenberg Election Survey, 2004c). The numbers did not stop rising either, as by the end of May, nearly 60 per cent were responding that they disapproved of the way the President was handling the war and a clear simple majority thought the war was a mistake from the get-go (National Annenberg Election Survey, 2004b). The US citizenry was starting to distrust the President as well, as CBS reported: ‘By a large margin, Americans think the U.S. handover of power to Iraqis should […] But by an even greater margin, Americans see that as unlikely’ (CBS, 2004). By the end of December, not even a few months after his re-election, the populace was continuing its opposition to Bush’s Iraq policies by still registering consistently high disapproval with 57 per cent disagreeing with Bush’s handling of the war and 56 per cent responding that the war was a mistake from the beginning. Iraq, by any fair measure, was not a popularly supported war.
Respected media analyst, journalist and New York Times Review of Books contributor Michael Massing (2004) wrote that media executives ‘believe when it comes to real war, Americans cannot bear to see bullet-ridden bodies and headless corpses … In the case of Iraq, the conflict Americans saw was highly sanitized’ (p. 23). Massing explains that CNN news coverage was ‘sanitized’ because ‘US news organizations gave Americans the war they thought Americans wanted to see’ (p. 12). Massing does not criticize post-war coverage and sees such coverage as now being critical and probing, with his explanation behind the switch in news content having to do with ‘its pack mentality’, and as a result of when ‘a president is popular and consensus prevails, [how] journalists shrink from challenging him’ (p. 65).
Consultation of polling data throughout 2004, however, clearly showed that the President was anything but widely popular and, instead, barely managed to win re-election. When questioned specifically about Iraq, the US citizenry was often opposed to the whole affair and disapproved of the President’s policies on Iraq. In light of these facts, the US people arguably did not want to see a ‘sanitized’ version of the leading issue of the day. As a result, the CNN media executive’s claim that the news media was simply responding to what the people ‘wanted’ does not carry much legitimacy.
Matters become even starker when it comes to Latino public opinion on the war. When asked whether the war against Iraq was worth it or not, Latinos answered ‘no’ at a rate 50 per cent higher than Caucasians (75% versus that of 47% for Caucasians). When it came to approval of the way the President was handling the war, Latinos still opposed Bush by disapproving 66% of the time (National Annenberg Election Survey, 2004b). Another poll, taken in December 2003, had recorded the same question as having a 57% response for ‘disapproval’ of Bush’s handling of Iraq policies (Pew Hispanic Center, 2004). The data are clear: throughout 2004, the US public (and especially Latinos) ranged anywhere from a lack of support for the war in Iraq to direct opposition to it. Support also ranged from a lack of support to direct opposition to the way Bush was handling Iraq. Public sentiment simply cannot be blamed for ‘sanitized’ coverage from CNN or CNN en Español, as it was against the war and, if anything, was hungry for information that supported such concerns and opposition.
Evidence of this desire, based on the public’s scepticism about the war, is found within unusual viewing trends that were documented by the London-based daily The Guardian. Viewers were found to be turning up in droves to watch British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) World news coverage and increasing Public Broadcasting Service’s (PBS) audience by an average of 28 per cent just 3 weeks after the invasion of Iraq occurred. New York City posted three times as high a viewership and Dallas, Texas, four times as high. Concurrently, CBS’ nightly viewership fell by 15 per cent and American Broadcasting Company’s (ABC) by 6 per cent (Deans, 2003).
Even if one ignored all of the aforementioned evidence, it is difficult to get away from a relevant question that is raised: if the US public did support the war and CNN was indeed simply responding to public sentiment, is this the job of an independent press that is supposed to arm the public with critical information and analysis of public officials and their most important policies?
Section IV: Conclusion: Discussion of Theoretical findings
This extensive content analysis was undertaken to test a number of components of the IM, PM and MDM. Ownership as an influence on news content was evaluated, structural constraints versus standardized journalistic practices were tested, sourcing tendencies were analyzed, expectations on determinants of volume of coverage were assessed and additional theorization of unworthy and worthy victims was sought. Detailed results related to these tested components under evaluation were noted and discussed above. However, a few of the most important theoretical implications stemming from the study are also discussed below. Ownership as an influence on news content was evaluated, structural constraints versus standardized journalistic practices were tested, sourcing tendencies were coded and analyzed, and additional theorization of expectations for unworthy and worthy victims was sought.
Institutional constraints, news norms, content similarities and the trail of power argument
Both the IM and PM were first posited before the era of hyper-commercialism and globalized corporate media conglomerates, which was beckoned with the passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act (McChesney, 2000). This study then was an opportunity to test the efficacy of ownership and its influence over news content during this new era. Similarly, it was an opportunity to test whether standardized norms and journalistic practices were more (or less) responsible for the resulting news content. The MDM expected ownership and institutional constraints to be a stronger influence than journalistic norms alone, as a comparative analysis between subsidiaries which served different populations and audiences, from different continents and languages, with differing public opinion on the topic at hand, was undertaken to assess that expectation. The more similar the content between the two networks, the larger the influence that could be attributed to ownership and institutional constraints. In the case of the latter, a debate between the IM and PM could be settled and related expectations of the MDM could also be evaluated.
In the end, the ownership filter of the PM went far to explain why and how content differences between the two subsidiaries, with vastly differing audiences and potentially vastly differing governments to source from, wound up having more in common with their content as opposed to less. In this sense, there are some holes present in the idea that ‘news norms’ were solely at work as opposed to institutional limitations, given that CNN en Español’s news norms would have then taken an additional interest (certainly over that of CNN) in what the governments of the countries to which they broadcast have to say. This would be especially true in light of CNN en Español’s own branding as a network which covers Latin America in a manner that is appropriate and relevant to those to whom they broadcast (that is, those who vote for their own domestic leaders and hold them accountable for their foreign policy positions).
A counter-argument by some political communication scholars could contend that CNN en Español could have been under the influence of a realist framework in having left out Latin American governmental sources and positions because they did not have as much influence over political outcomes. Such a counter-argument would be consistent with Bennett’s (1996) ‘trail of power’ argument (p. 378).
This argument, however, is not mutually exclusive with the PM and MDM’s arguments on institutional limitations. That is, CNN en Español’s possible adoption of a realist framework of analysis and ‘trail of power’ tendencies in terms of sourcing surveyed in this study and the related lack of substantive criticism is consistent with the institutional and business interests of the parent network and conglomerate-owned CNN. If only ‘news norms’ were at work in influencing sourcing tendencies, as opposed to also overriding business and institutional interests, the routine citation of Latin American governments should have taken place in accordance with the journalistic norm of placing a greater emphasis on official positioning of the region to which it is broadcasting. That sourcing result would have also portended, in turn, additional substantive criticism.
The tension between ‘news norms’ and ‘trail of power’ tendencies is duly illustrated then: sometimes, following the ‘trail of power’ means going against the grain of established professional and news norms. When and if this is the case, as it was in this study, it is consistent with the idea that overriding business interests and institutional constraints can meld and mend professional ‘news norms’. It is also consistent with Herman’s (2000) criticism of news norms as a sole theoretical explanation as being ‘fuzzy and flexible concepts […] not likely to override the claims and demands of deeper power and control relationships’.
Indications born from this study point to both phenomena having been at work: that is, the ‘trail of power’ being utilized, but in a manner that was consistent with the institutional and business interests of the parent network and conglomerate-owned CNN. The idea that these theoretical constructs – the ‘trail of power’ tendency and institutional constraints – can be consistent with each other is part of the efficacy of the synthesis of the IM and PM into the MDM.
The presence of the filters in the PM compensates for a lack of critical analysis present in indexing and this study duly showed how such an analysis can shed light on the findings herein. The same is true for the over-emphasis some indexing theorists have placed on journalistic autonomy and the sociology of the newsroom as sole factors for news content. Thus, this case study showed the PM and its inclusion of institutional factors as an appropriate analysis, as much of the data in this study pointed to greater forces being at work going beyond only journalistic norms (or, arguably, even shaping them).
Volume of coverage
Another area the MDM sought to develop in its synthesis of the IM and PM was expectations about volume of coverage. The MDM component in this regard posits that governmental attention (IM) will more often prove to be the stronger variable accounting for volume of coverage. The results of the Fallujah study pointed strongly towards governmental attention, as opposed to the worthy and unworthy victims dichotomy (PM), as being the stronger of the two factors determining news coverage allocation.
Another important commonality seen between both networks’ coverage of Fallujah was the similar coverage distribution found between time periods. Indexing complemented the PM in this sense, as it helped explain the differing volumes of coverage. This was the case because of the presence of an official and oft-repeated pretext for the incursions of Fallujah in 2004 versus the lack of such an official pretext for the abuses of 2003 (i.e. the slaying of the military contractors, who showed high levels of humanization and worthiness). The time periods of 2004, with a higher potential for official discourse and sourcing tendencies – amply revealed in the results of the content analysis – generated substantially larger coverage totals. Indexing and the PM used in conjunction help provide the most robust explanation for such differentiation, as the IM links sourcing tendencies to volume of coverage and the PM links volume of coverage to the status of victims, with unworthy victims generally resulting in proportionally less apportioned coverage and worthy victims generally resulting in more.
These results were clearly seen in the case study, as the third time period evaluated in the study did not have worthy victims prominently featured in the coverage, though it attracted more newscast stories than the second time period on CNN and nearly as much coverage as the second time period in the case of CNN en Español. Nevertheless, worthy and unworthy victims were found to be important as well, as worthy victims were prominently featured in the second time period and its volume far outweighed the first time period, which featured neither governmental attention nor worthy victims. Ultimately though, governmental attention was found to be the most important variable and the IM’s complementary strength of a weaker aspect of the PM was shown to work well. The synthesis that the MDM is largely based on was thus also shown to work well, as the IM compensated for an empirical weakness of the PM.
Additional nuance
The MDM had several original components that went beyond the mere synthesis of the IM and PM, which were under consideration. A higher level of nuance was sought for differing victims of a given conflict. This was one of the big learning opportunities gained from this study, as it was found that US soldiers will only be slightly unworthy when there is consensus present in Washington. The conflicting realities of the propaganda value lost from highlighting the plight of soldiers, along with the fact that their casualties generally came at the hands of despised resistance fighters who were often labelled terrorists, resulted in this ambiguity. More testing is needed of this newer component of the MDM, but this study did suggest that worthiness of these victims will be mixed and ambiguous when there is consensus in Washington.
The results of the content analysis clearly pointed to the need for a more nuanced version of the worthy and unworthy victims’ concept: some victims are less unworthy than others in the complex state of affairs which usually characterize military occupations. The MDM’s components attempted to test and explain its expectations for a nuanced victimization to victims who have been casualties of both the Iraqi resistance and of US soldiers themselves. Results reflected such nuances and it clearly was not the case that Iraqi civilians were always unworthy victims. Given the tension between lost propaganda value through coverage and attention towards US soldier casualties from ‘terrorist’ groups and ‘foreign fighters’ (ominously, a term never applied towards the occupiers themselves in either network’s coverage), conflicting with the fact that such casualties were still at the hands of the Iraqi resistance (who are official enemies of governmental sources), the nuanced victimization that the MDM expected was evidenced in this study. US soldiers were unworthy, but only slightly. The MDM helped to paint a more nuanced and explainable picture of victimization than the PM alone could achieve and represented the most important theoretical advance that went beyond that of the IM and PM.
Additional Research
Additional research in this area is definitely needed as it may be shown that over time the status of certain victims can change, with the MDM expecting such changes to coincide with changing governmental positioning on the matter. Generally, the more attention that is granted by high-ranking government officials toward U.S. soldier casualties, especially when coupled with increased resistance to the war by the public, should result in higher humanization levels within mainstream news content.
Indeed, additional research could very well also show an increased level of relevance for indexing for more recent coverage of the occupation of Iraq, given the changes in positioning in Washington. One of the strongest aspects of indexing is its penchant to account for changes in coverage that reflect changes in the debate in Washington. It is completely possible, if not probable, that the unworthy victims status of U.S. soldiers has changed in substantive terms and may have become more unworthy during the Barack Obama administration and related commitments to involve itself with Iraq again, coupled with the lack of criticism by high-ranking public officials and the lack of public resistance against re-engagement. However, if increased attention to the war by high-ranking government officials, especially in light of the Republican controlled Congress, has already or does indeed occur, unworthiness can and would be expected to be lessened, and again, especially when coupled with increased public resistance.
In light of the findings of this study, a synthesized version of the IM and PM, as well as original components of the MDM, were found to be applicable in the case of both CNN and CNN en Español coverage of Fallujah. The content analyzed in this case study shows that the ownership filter is pertinent to resulting content, as even differing sourcing tendencies only resulted in a modest amount of substantive criticism and some additional humanizing coverage, but no significant differences in content. Nor did such differing sourcing tendencies result in additional prominence for the governments of the nations in which the network most prominently broadcasts. This points to the potential need to revise the sourcing filter in its application to international news sources that are subsumed under conglomerates like Time Warner. Additional research with corresponding findings may thus point to a need to even further strengthen expectations on official sourcing tendencies by the MDM, in today’s more global-oriented news media climate.
Additional research in verifying the findings of this study, as well as further theoretical development of the MDM, would go far toward the lofty goal of positing an improved theoretical understanding of global news media performance in the 21st century.
Footnotes
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.