Visualizing Cross-Media Coverage: Picturing War Across Platforms During the U.S.-Led Invasion of Iraq

Abstract

The journalistic practice of convergence—media outlets sharing similar content across platforms—has sometimes been criticized as leading to homogenization of the news. Yet few studies have attempted to determine how much content is duplicated among convergence partners or, more generally, among print, broadcast, and online outlets. This study adds to our understanding of content differences among media platforms by comparing visual coverage of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in print, on television, and on the Internet. The data from 1,822 war-related images show that these media platforms generally differed significantly in their visual coverage of the 2003 invasion. This study, grounded in Shoemaker and Reese's hierarchy of influences on media content, suggests that differences were largely driven by separate platform routines and norms. In the few cases where content converged in a visual monologue, extramedia influences, such as government action, seem likely to have influenced image selection.

Notes

¹We recognize that the word convergence has many meanings within newsrooms, media organizations, and emerging technologies (see Klinenberg, 2005; Silcock & Keith, 2006). Some scholars, particularly those focused on political economy, use the term to refer to media consolidation and corporatization. Other scholars use “convergence” to describe technological developments that blur media boundaries, such as the development of cell phones that also function as music and video players. This study follows scholars of journalism and mass communication in using “convergence” to refer to content sharing by the mainstream media across platforms as the result, for example, of partnerships between newspapers and television news operations or the creation of Web sites by television stations, newspapers, and magazines.

²President George Bush declared the end of major combat operations in Iraq on May 1, 2003, shortly after data collection ended

³The Chicago Tribune, the Daily News of New York, the Houston Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, USA Today, the Washington Post, and Newsday of Long Island.

⁴The Arizona Republic (Gannett), the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Cox), the Dallas Morning News (Belo), the Miami Herald (Knight Ridder), the Oregonian (Newhouse), the Rocky Mountain News (Scripps Howard), the Sacramento Bee (McClatchy), the Tampa Tribune (Media General), and the Virginian-Pilot of Norfork (Landmark).

⁵Most front pages were obtained in PDF format from the Web site of the Newseum (www.newseum.org), a museum of news in Washington, DC, which archives only the front pages of newspapers. A few front pages were obtained as PDF files available on the newspapers' Web sites or as PDF files or microfilm printouts made available by newspaper staff members.

⁶ ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, CNN's NewsNight with Aaron Brown, and FOX Report with Shepard Smith

⁷“Standing” visuals used every day, such as a weather icon on a home page or the U.S. flag in the nameplate of the Chicago Tribune, were not included in the coding.

⁸For this study, a single video image was counted each time the shot (subject) changed by video editing or, in the case of a pan, each time the subject changed, such as when the camera moved from a medium shot of a tank to a close-up of a civilian.

⁹If two or more images were the same size or displayed for the same amount of time, none was considered dominant; all were considered secondary.

¹⁰The 27 coding classifications were George Bush, Saddam Hussein, representations of Saddam Hussein (statue, posters, etc.), ordnance (planes, weapons, tanks, etc.), ordnance and U.S. troops, maps of Iraq, maps of Iraq and Kuwait, maps of the Middle East, network/newspaper/Web correspondents or anchors, city scenes in Baghdad (operationalized as images of air strikes on Baghdad buildings that did not show people), antiwar protesters in the United States, home front, U.S. military officials, U.S. civilian officials, U.S. troops, non-U.S. coalition military officials, coalition troops, U.S. troops with Iraqi prisoners or civilians, coalition troops and Iraqi prisoners or civilians, Iraqi civilians, Iraqi troops (loyal to Saddam Hussein), Iraqi militia (splinter groups, vigilantes), Iraqi officials, terrorists (Al Qaeda, Abu Abbas, etc.), humanitarian relief, destruction (explosions, bombed-out buildings and vehicles, etc.), and flags.

¹¹U.S. troops were coded separately from coalition troops, but the latter were not broken down according to country. In many cases it was impossible to distinguish between the troops from different countries because that information was not provided in a cutline, caption, or voice-over.

¹²The official war machine category encompasses images of those who run the war and the weapons they use, including George Bush, ordnance, maps of Iraq, maps of Iraq and Kuwait, maps of the Middle East, city scenes in Baghdad, U.S. military officials, U.S. civilian officials, non-U.S. coalition military officials, destruction, and flags. The U.S. and coalition troops category encompasses images of those who fought the war, including U.S. troops, coalition troops, U.S. troops with Iraqi prisoners or civilians, ordnance and U.S. troops, and coalition troops with Iraqi prisoners or civilians. The enemy category consists of images coded as Saddam Hussein, representations of Saddam Hussein, Iraqi troops, Iraqi militia, Iraqi officials, and terrorists. The Iraqi civilians category consists of images coded as Iraqi noncombatants and humanitarian relief. The U.S. public reaction category contained images coded as antiwar protesters and the home front. The journalists category contains images of television anchors or correspondents for print, television, and the Internet.

¹³Because of the small number of images on news magazine covers in the data set, newspaper and news magazine images were collapsed into a single print classification for this analysis.

^aBecause of rounding, percentages do not always add up to 100.

¹⁴Two categories—the enemy and U.S. reaction—were collapsed to avoid unacceptably low expected cell counts.

^aAll images n = 976; dominant images, n = 19.

^bAll images, n = 399; dominant images, n = 88.

^cAll images, n = 222; dominant images, n = 75.

^d N = 1,597.

^e N = 226.

¹⁵The three smallest categories—the enemy, U.S. reaction, and Iraqi civilians—were collapsed to avoid unacceptably low expected cell counts.

^a N = 1,059. Because of rounding, percentages add to more than 100.

^b N = 471.

^c N = 292.

¹⁶Although television is a medium, its influence on print, especially newspapers, is extramedia in that it came from outside the print medium.