On March 19, 2003, the United States military led a "pre-emptive" strike on Iraq, thrusting media into a heightened responsibility to keep the American public informed. By May 1, 2003, President George W. Bush had officially declared the war over, but at the time of this study, Spring 2005, violence prevailed in Iraq.Throughout the Iraq War, different styles of print media coverage appeared between the United States and German presses – reflective of each country's stance on the Iraq war. As influenced by numerous factors, U.S. and German newspapers covered the Iraq conflict in different ways. Several predictions resulted from considerations of nationality and political stance on the Iraq war.To assess the accuracy of those predictions, a content analysis was conducted. Two independent variables were named--the German newspaper, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) and the U.S. newspaper, the Washington Post.The results gleaned from the analysis were examined with a chi-square, and most were found to be significant: As hypothesized, both U.S. and German newspapers overwhelmingly featured official sources. This meant that the media did not fulfill its watchdog function, but instead, allowed officials to frame the story of war.Although each country was viewing the war through official sources, those sources accentuated different aspects of the war and often carried strong positive or negative tones. The Washington Post carried more neutral sources, whereas the Frankfurt Allgemeine Zeitung carried more negative sources. With a clear sentiment against the war, German newspapers more often featured sources who weren't active players in the war and non-American, non-Iraqi sources in their articles, thus attempting to offer more balanced reporting. This study may offer an explanation as to why the United States and Germany shared such opposing opinions about the Iraq War–each country's citizens experienced the news from different perspectives. / Department of Journalism

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Contemporary researches on news coverage of Persian Gulf Wars have shown many controversial results in examining how U.S. newspapers covered war events during the wartime. This study examined the coverage of Operation Iraqi Freedom by the newspapers of the United States, Britain, and Saudi Arabia.Three prominent newspapers, the New York Times, the Times of London and Arab News, were selected for content analysis of their coverage of Operation Iraqi Freedom between March 20 and May 1, 2003. The percentage breakdown of positive, negative and neutral paragraphs coded from composite two weeks of publications by all three newspapers was studied.The goal of the study was to determine if the coverage of the 2003 Iraq war by the New York Times and the Times of London were more favorable than that Arab News. The Arab News was used as a basis for comparison of American and British newspapers for this study.The results of the study showed that the three newspapers covered the Operation of Iraqi Freedom in a neutral manner.Ball State UniversityMuncie, IN 47306However, the Times of London treated the Iraq war coverage with more positive news rather than the New York Times and Arab News did, respectively. On the other hand, Arab News appeared to have devoted the lowest favorable news stories after the Times of London. / Department of Journalism

This study, which may be considered the first of its kind to be conducted on Bahraini newspapers, attempted to provide an insight on the inner workings of these newspapers. The knowledge from this study provides a spring board for other studies to follow and venture into ethnic backgrounds and its affect on media coverage.The main focus was on the coverage of the war in Iraq by two Bahraini newspapers (Al Ayam and Al Wasat) and the gatekeeping process. Both newspapers exhibited a gatekeeping process which was influenced by their ethnic background. Editors of both Al Ayam and Al Wasat exercised gatekeeping on the stories that they published about the war in Iraq promoting their own ethnic group (Sunni or Shiite).The findings in this study presented a new characteristic that seemed to have a direct influence on the gatekeeping process. Ethnic background has never been associated with the gatekeeping process in news coverage. Results of the content analysis undertaken in this study reflected how the ethnic backgrounds of the editors in both newspapers did influence news selection and newspreference. / Department of Journalism

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