In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Maxwell et al. (2000) conducted a content analysis of domestic violence news articles published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News and the New York Times, between 1990 and 1997. In total, 10,568 articles were analyzed. The timeframe was selected to establish trends leading up to the Simpson case and to examine effects during and after the criminal trial. As predicted , the overall level of domestic violence coverage (volume) increased signi ficantly during the Simpson trial, including articles not related to the case. Neither the Philadelphia Inquirer nor the Philadelphia Daily News maintained their heightened volume of domestic violence coverage after the Simpson criminal trial ended, although the New York Times maintained a level of domestic violence coverage consistently higher than in the pre-Simpson period. The authors also predicted that the Simpson case would change the nature (tone) of domestic violence news coverage—that is, articles would become more issue, and less incident, focused. This argument was not supported by the findings. Although articles published after the Simpson case focused more attention on the abuser’s behavior, Maxwell et al. (2000, p. 270) found that victims were still presented in stereotypical terms and that “the onus of responsibility remains with the victim who is expected to end the violence through her own actions.” Thus, Maxwell and colleagues concluded that the Simpson case had no meaningful or lasting effect on the nature or tone of domestic violence news coverage or the way victims are portrayed. This study guides an examination of the events leading up to the invasion of Iraq by demonstrating the importance of analyzing the volume and tone of rhetorical content in the news media. In summary, the literature supports the existence of a symbiotic relationship between state managers (i.e., policy makers) and the news media (Altheide, 2002; Welch et al., 1997). It has also been demonstrated that the news media (Kiousis, 2003; Wanta et al., 2004) and state managers (Beckett, 1994) both help to set the public agenda and influence public opinion on key issues. Moreover, empirical research supports the moral panic perspective (McCorkle & Miethe, 1998; Welch, 2000; Welch, Price & Yankey, 2002) and demonstrates that the president of the United States participates in the social construction of reality, the agenda-setting process, and the elite engineering of moral panics (Hawdon, 2001; Johnson et al., 2004; Reinarman & Levine, 1989; Rothe & Muzzatti, 2004). Together, these studies guide an examination of the war in Iraq by suggesting that state elites and the news media play prominent roles in the construction of social issues/problems and, as a result, in the generation and shaping of public concern (including elite-engineered moral panic) as well as policy preferences regarding those issues/problems. The Empirical Criteria of Elite-Engineered Moral Panic As introduced in chapter one, the elite-engineered model of moral panic premises that “an elite group deliberately and consciously undertakes a campaign M a s s D e c e p t i o n 40 to generate and sustain concern, fear and panic on the part of the public over an issue that they recognize not to be terribly harmful to the society as a whole” (Goode & Ben-Yehuda, 1994, p. 135). Often times, such a campaign is intended to divert public attention away from other objective or real problems in society, whose solution might jeopardize or undermine the elite group’s interests (Goode & Ben-Yehuda, 1994). The elite-engineered model of moral panic assumes that political/economic elites have tremendous power over other members of society. Societal elites frame issues for public discourse, control the distribution of valuable resources, dominate the mass media, and determine the content of legislation and the direction of law enforcement (Chambliss & Mankoff, 1976). Through the lens of elite-engineered moral panic, public concern or fear over an issue is viewed as orchestrated from above by elites who control the governing ideology, have unfettered access to mass media outlets, and promote fear or concern among the masses. Thus, elite-engineered moral panic represents a “top-down” conceptual model. Stated differently, an elite-engineered moral panic is the public response to an exaggeration or distortion by societal elites and the media of the threat posed by some disvalued group or condition. In summary, elite-engineered moral panic is the conceptual framework used herein to analyze the Iraq war. As articulated by Cohen (2002), in order to be a moral panic, a situation or condition must include an exaggeration of certain events according to empirical criteria...

Share