WestminsterResearch http://www.westminster.ac.uk/research/westminsterresearch The Iraq crisis of 2003 and press-state relations : an analysis of press coverage in Finland, Ireland and the UK. Janne Halttu. School of Media, Arts and Design This is an electronic version of a PhD thesis awarded by the University of Westminster. © The Author, 2010. This is an exact reproduction of the paper copy held by the University of Westminster library. The WestminsterResearch online digital archive at the University of Westminster aims to make the research output of the University available to a wider audience. Copyright and Moral Rights remain with the authors and/or copyright owners. Users are permitted to download and/or print one copy for non-commercial private study or research. Further distribution and any use of material from within this archive for profit-making enterprises or for commercial gain is strictly forbidden. Whilst further distribution of specific materials from within this archive is forbidden, you may freely distribute the URL of WestminsterResearch: (http://westminsterresearch.wmin.ac.uk/). In case of abuse or copyright appearing without permission e-mail [email protected] The Iraq Crisis of 2003 and Press-State Relations: An Analysis of Press Coverage in Finland, Ireland and the UK Janne Halttu A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Westminster for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy July 2010 1 Abstract Janne Halttu: ‘The Iraq Crisis of 2003 and Press-State Relations: An Analysis of Press Coverage in Finland, Ireland and the UK’ The dissensus over Iraq on both international and national levels offers a rich setting for a cross-national research to test some assumptions about media-foreign policy relationship originating mainly from American political communication literature. This line of research suggests that the government policy line and national elite opinion (consensus/dissensus) are the most important factors in explaining how the media cover international politics. This study focuses on three European states which adopted different policies with regard to Iraq: Finland (anti-war), Ireland (neutral) and the UK (pro-war). The study employs both quantitative and qualitative content analysis in order to determine the range of sources, selection of topics and the tone of the press coverage of the Iraq crisis and controversial national Iraq policies. Data consist of two daily quality newspapers from each country from different ends of the political spectrum. However, in the absence of another national daily, a regional quality newspaper and the biggest national tabloid newspaper were included from Finland. Main periods of analysis cover four weeks at critical phases of the crisis between February and May 2003. The analysis indicated that governments' foreign policy line did not explain the differences in press coverage very well. In the case of Finland, opinion items were sympathetic to anti-war views but news articles often reproduced the US/UK case for war. Meanwhile, the national political elite had little interest in engaging into a public debate on such issues as US motivations, the war's legal repercussions or potential consequences for the fragile Middle Eastern security system. With national elite unwilling to publicly challenge the US/UK claims, the Finnish press coverage did not stand out as particularly critical of the invasion although the US claims did not go uncontested in the Finnish newspapers either. In Ireland and the UK, clear differences between newspapers operating in the same political system indicated that government policy was not the most significant factor in explaining how the press covered the Iraq crisis. In both countries, the elites were divided over the issue of Iraq and the newspapers reflected these divisions. The Independent and the Irish Times 2 were more sympathetic to the political opposition's anti-war views than the Daily Telegraph and the Irish Independent. The Telegraph was the most consistent in its support for the war but the analysis also indicated that in the post-war situation the press coverage became less uniform both within the newspapers and countries. Overall, the opinions were much more polarised than in the Finnish newspapers clearly indicating that the elite dissensus had brought the Iraq policy in 'the sphere of legitimate controversy'. 3 Acknowledgements There are many people who have supported me in one way or the other during this research project. First of all, I am thankful for the advice and encouragement of my supervisory team, Professors Daya Thussu and Jean Seaton. I am indebted for the three-year scholarship to Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI). I am in gratitude to Minister (Hon) Jaakko Iloniemi and Mr Martti Setälä at Unifin Ltd for granting me study leave from work at my request. I owe a debt of gratitude to Mrs Maja Turnšek Hančič for her advice on content analysis and Mr Luigi Rodriguez Rocha for double coding. I would also like to thank Professor Hannu Nieminen for his advice and support in the last ten years. Finally, I thank my friends and family for providing all-important distractions from this research project. 4 Table of Contents List of tables..........................................................................................................................8 1 Introduction.......................................................................................................................9 1.1 The Iraq crisis 9 1.2 Previous research 11 1.3 Design for a cross-national study 13 1.4 Structure of the thesis 14 2 Persuasion, foreign policy and the media......................................................................15 2.1 Introduction 15 2.2 Early war reporting and the emergence of the global media system 16 2.3 Media in the total war 18 2.4 The Cold War era 24 2.4.1 Finland and the Cold War 25 2.4.2 The Vietnam War 27 2.4.3 The Falklands War 29 2.5 The age of CNN wars 31 2.5.1 The Gulf War 32 2.5.2 The Balkan wars 35 2.6 The War on Terror 42 2.7 Discussion 45 3 Theoretical approaches to media and foreign policy....................................................49 3.1 Introduction 49 3.2 Manufacturing consent or driving foreign policy? Theories of media-state relations assessed 52 3.2.1 CNN effect thesis 53 3.2.2 Manufacturing consent paradigm 56 3.2.3 Policy-media interaction model 61 3.2.4 Cascading activation and political contest models 63 3.3 Exporting theories of media-state relations 65 3.3.1 Hierarchical international system 66 3.3.2 National media systems 69 3.4 Conclusion 71 4 The Iraq Crisis, 2002-2003.............................................................................................72 4.1 Introduction 72 4.2 The run-up to the US/UK invasion of Iraq 73 4.3 The invasion 85 4.4 The fallout 88 4.5 Coalition press policy in the Iraq War 92 4.6 Media coverage of the Iraq Crisis 97 4.6.1 The US 97 4.6.2 The UK 100 4.6.3 Europe 102 4.6.4 Arab world 103 4.6.5 Rest of the world 104 5 4.7 Conclusion 105 5 Research design and methodology...............................................................................107 5.1 Introduction 107 5.2 The Iraq Crisis as a case for a comparative study 108 5.3 Foreign policy controversies in the UK, Ireland and Finland 109 5.3.1 Britain: Blair's unpopular commitment to military operation against Iraq 109 5.3.2 Ireland: Controversy over the stop-over policy 111 5.3.3 Finland: Foreign policy takes centre-stage ahead of general elections 114 5.3.4 In sum 119 5.4 Selecting the sample 120 5.4.1 Selecting the newspapers 120 5.4.2 Selecting the periods of analysis 127 5.5 Hypotheses 131 5.6 Methodology 133 5.6.1 Content analysis as a method 133 5.6.2 The coding procedure 136 5.6.3 Creating the categories 139 5.6.4 Qualitative analysis 143 5.6.5 Intercoder reliability 143 5.7 Conclusion 144 6 The case for war in the press, 6-12 February..............................................................146 6.1 Introduction 146 6.2 Government positions 149 6.3 Analysis of press coverage 151 6.3.1 Sourcing 152 6.3.2 Responses to Powell's presentation and the case for war 154 6.3.3 Possible oil-related motives 163 6.4 Conclusion 167 7 The war begins, 18-24 March.......................................................................................169 7.1 Introduction 169 7.2 Government positions 171 7.3 The sample 173 7.4 Analysis of coverage 175 7.4.1 Editorial responses to the beginning of the war 175 7.4.2 Sourcing 182 7.4.3 Selection of topics 184 7.4.4 Justifications, objectives and consequences of the war 185 7.5 Conclusion 187 8 The fall of Baghdad and the rise of anarchy, 10-16 April..........................................189 8.1 Introduction 189 8.2 Analysis of the coverage 192 8.2.1 Editorial responses to the fall of Baghdad 192 8.2.2 Sourcing 199 8.2.3 Salience of critical topics in press coverage 200 8.2.4 Direction of arguments 202 8.3 Conclusion 205 6 9 The aftermath, 2-8 May................................................................................................206 9.1 Introduction 206 9.2 The sample 208 9.3 Analysis of the coverage 209 9.3.1 Coverage of President Bush's declaration of the ”end of combat missions” 210 9.3.2 Range of views, topics and sources 213 9.3.3 Iraqi views 218 9.3.4 Terrorism 219 9.3.5 Elusive weapons of mass destruction 221 9.3.6 Coverage of casualties 223 9.3.7 Coverage of the UN 224 9.4 Conclusion 226 10 Theoretical implications..............................................................................................227