Prime Time Politics: Television News and the Visual Framing of War

Abstract

This project is concerned with how televised images of violence on the field of battle affect public support for war. News coverage is a powerful factor in influencing public opinion, but the majority of past empirical work has focused on spoken or written content rather than the visual component of television news. Emotion-laden imagery may evoke powerful reactions that are independent of a news story’s factual information. This dissertation captures the power of war images on television by developing a systematic and reproducible method of coding to measure news imagery. I use this method to conduct an original content analysis of the Vanderbilt Television News Archives, documenting changes in news portrayals of war over time and across news networks. I then examine the effects of violent war images on public support for war, finding that modern televised images of violence dwarf their predecessors in frequency and severity. I also find that the effects of violence negatively influence the public’s view of war. As violent images on television news increase, the public is less likely to support conflict.