The Media, War, and Elections

Abstract

This paper examines media coverage of war and its impact on elections in the United States (US) and Britain. Much of what is known about public opinion, voting behavior and war comes either from single country studies of particular conflicts (e.g., Vietnam, the Falklands, the Gulf War), or from studies that pool multiple conflicts across many years. The former preclude separation of country effects from the characteristics of the war, of the time, or of the incumbent government, while the latter kinds of study focus on war duration, war outcomes, and the fates of regimes and leaders, rather than on public attitudes (Bueno de Mesquita, Siverson, and Woller 1992; Chiozza and Goemans 2004; Croco 2011; Debs and Goemans 2010). At the same time, a great deal of conventional wisdom about media effects is based on a single case, the US, with speculation as to its generalizability. Recent interest in the potential effects of partisan bias in news reporting and consumption is no exception (e.g., Dilliplane 2014).