1. MELANY PARLAMAN
SALISBURY UNIVERSITY
MLPARLAMAN @
GMAIL.COM
War of Words:
An Examination of Government Sourcing, White
House Opinion Dominance,
and the “War on Terror” Frame in National
Newspapers Post-9/11

2. The Free Press?
 Media & Government, a “reluctant symbiosis”
 Sinister connotations of the reciprocity of interest
 Propaganda, Information Dominance, & Opinion
Dominance
 Framing & Foreign Policy Discussions
 War of Words
 The “War on Terror” frame

3. Cascading Activation

4. Institutionalized Propaganda
 News is:
 “An institutional means of
providing information to
consumers”
 “An ally of legitimated
institutions”
 “A product of the
institutional and professional
practices of news workers”
 “The product of a social
institution in league with
other institutions”
 Sourcing

5. The Propaganda Model

6. Thesis Statement
 This study
 Analyzed the journalistic
conventions of story framing
and sourcing
 Examined quoted material of
articles in four publications of
national prominence
 Specifically examined the
immediate post-9/11 period
(9/12/01 - 9/12/02)
 Determined source variety and
presence of “War on Terror”
frame

7. Method
 Lexis-Nexis database
 Code Book
 Type
 War on Terror Frame terminology
 Qualtrics
 Microsoft Excel & SPSS

8. Results: Hypothesis 1
Hypothesis 1
proposed that
U.S. government
sources would be
more likely to
appear as the first
source of an
article.

9. Results: Hypothesis 2
Hypothesis 2
proposed that the
sample of articles
would exhibit a
dominance of U.S.
government
sources.

10. Which publication exhibits the
most government sourcing?
Which publication exhibits the
least government sourcing?
Results: Research Questions 1 & 2

11. Results: Hypothesis 3
Hypothesis 3
proposed that a
majority of
sources quoted
would exhibit
terminology
consistent with
the “War on
Terror” frame.

12. Results: Hypothesis 4
Hypothesis 4
proposed that a
majority of
articles would
exhibit a
dominance of
sources exhibiting
terminology
consistent with
the “War on
Terror” frame.