War Stories: The Causes and Consequences of Public Views of War

List of Figures

Figures Figure 2.1. Elasticity of Reality for a Given State of Events 39 Figure 2.2. Persuasiveness of Presidential Rhetoric over Time, by Party 42 Figure 3.1. Mean Expert Ratings of Whether U.S. Military Actions Were Successful or Worthwhile 52 Figure 3.2. Journalist and Citizen Ratings of Interest in News, by Different Types of News Stories 56 Figure 3.3. Trend in Positive and Negative Foreign Policy Evaluations ⫾30 Days from Rally Event Onset 57 Figure 3.4. Summary of Valence in Congressional Evaluations of President 59 Figure 3.5. Praise as Estimated Proportion of Valenced Rhetoric (Praise and Criticism) as Casualties Vary, Preversus Postdeployment Periods 68 Figure 3.6. Estimated Effect of Two Standard Deviation Increase in MC Rhetoric on Approval 69 Figure 4.1. Estimated Probability That Sunday Morning Talk Show Evaluation Appears on Evening News 102 Figure 4.2. Estimated Proportion of All Valenced (Positive and Negative) Morning Talk Show Evaluations Appearing on Evening News That Are Negative, Foreign versus NonForeign Policy Rhetoric 106 Figure 5.1. Estimated Probability of Disapproving of President Bush’s Handling of National Security, as Message Source and Valence Vary 122 Figure 5.2. Estimated Probability of Disapproving of President Bush’s Handling of National Security, as News Source and Message Valence Vary 125 Figure 5.3. Estimated Probability of Believing the Iraq Conflict Is “Going Well,” as Source of War News and Party Identification Vary 130 Figure 6.1. Network Iraq- and Military-Related Evaluations from All Sources 154 Figure 6.2. Fox Iraq- and Military-Related Evaluations from All Sources 155 Figure 6.3. Floor Rhetoric by Members of Congress Regarding Major Events in Iraq 157 x • Figures Figure 6.4. Monthly Wire Service Stories Mentioning Haditha, Hamdaniya, or Al-Mahmudiyah Scandals 161 Figure 6.5. U.S. Military Casualties in Iraq and Mentions of Iraq on Fox and Network Evening News Programs 164 Figure 6.6. Illustration of 1/100th Daily Decay Function 167 Figure 6.7. Evaluations on Fox vs. Networks 170 Figure 6.8. Predicted Curve If Rhetoric Perfectly Tracked Reality 171 Figure 6.9. Estimated Effect of Events on Network Coverage of Elite Rhetoric, by Source, Target, and Topic 172 Figure 6.10. Estimated Effect of Events on Fox Coverage of Elite Rhetoric, by Source, Target, and Topic 173 Figure 7.1. Estimated Interest in Stories Regarding Rising versus Declining Casualties, as Beliefs about Casualty Trends and Media Coverage Vary 191 Figure 7.2. Comparison of Congressional Iraq Coverage Devoted to “Surprising” War Critics before and after Their Criticism, 2005 vs. 2007 194 Figure 7.3. Evolution of Public Opinion Regarding Iraq Conflict 196 Figure 7.4. Perceived U.S. Progress in Iraq since Start of Surge, by Party 198 Figure 7.5. Estimated Percent Change in Public War Support and Net Positive New York Times Casualty Coverage as Actual Casualties and New York Times Casualty Coverage Vary, May 2003–November 2007 204 Figure 7.6. Estimated Effect of a Presidential Statement on Iraq on News Coverage of and Partisan Support for Iraq War, 2002–2007 214 Figure 7.7. Valence of Evaluations, by Year 218 Figure 7.8. Estimated Effect of Events on Coverage of Elite Rhetoric, Early (2004–2005) versus Late (2006–2007) 220 Figure 8.1. Percent of Public Relying on Medium for News about Campaign 2008, by Age 232 Figure 8.2. Estimated Effect of Events on Coverage of Elite Rhetoric, Early (2004–2005) versus Late (2006–2007) 235 Figure 8.3. Journalist versus Blogger Attitudes toward Iraq Coverage 237 Figure 8.4. Journalist and Blogger Assessments of Bush Administration Influence over Framing of Iraq War at Start of War versus Over Time Trend 239 Figure 8.5. Relative Prevalence of Story Characteristics across Stories Featured and Not Featured on Web Site, by Story Characteristic and Outlet 248 Figure 8.6. Story Characteristics across Stories Featured and Not Featured on Web Site, by Story Characteristic and Outlet 249 Figure 8.7. Estimated Probability of Believing the Iraq Conflict Is “Going Well,” as Source of War News and Party Identification Vary 264 Figure 9.1. Preferences for Self-Reinforcing News, as Strength of Ideology Increases 291 Figures • xi This page intentionally left blank ...