Communist and Post-Communist Studies Volume 46 issue 4 2013 [doi 10.1016%2Fj.postcomstud.2013.08.003] Bayulgen, Oksan; Arbatli, Ekim -- Cold War redux in US–Russia relations_ The effects of US media f.pdf

Communist and Post-Communist Studies 46 (2013) 513527
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Communist and Post-Communist Studies

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/postcomstud
Cold War redux in USRussia relations? The effects of US

media framing and public opinion of the 2008 RussiaGeorgia
war
Oksan Bayulgen a, *, Ekim Arbatli b
a
Department of Political Science, University of Connecticut, 365 Faireld Way, Storrs, CT 06269-1024, USA
b
Faculty of Politics, NSU Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russian Federation
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: This paper examines the Cold War rhetoric in USRussia relations by looking at the 2008
Available online 26 September 2013 RussiaGeorgia war as a major breaking point. We investigate the links between media,
public opinion and foreign policy. In our content analysis of the coverage in two major
Keywords: US newspapers, we nd that the framing of the conict was anti-Russia, especially in the
USRussia relations initial stages of the conict. In addition, our survey results demonstrate that an increase in
RussiaGeorgia war
the media exposure of US respondents increased the likelihood of blaming Russia exclu-
Media framing
sively in the conict. This case study helps us understand how media can be powerful in
Public opinion
Cold War mentality
constructing a certain narrative of an international conict, which can then affect public
perceptions of other countries. We believe that the negative framing of Russia in the US
media has had important implications for the already-tenuous relations between the US
and Russia by reviving and perpetuating the Cold War mentality for the public as well as
for foreign policymakers.
2013 The Regents of the University of California. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights
reserved.
Even though the Cold War ended over twenty years ago, its legacy still permeates the discourse among politicians, the
media, and consequently the public at large in both Russia and the United States. Cold War remains the default paradigm for
viewing USRussia relations. One palpable example of this is the US Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romneys pre-
election comment in March 2012 that Russia is without a question the number one geopolitical foe for the United States
(Oppel, 2012). Russian president Vladimir Putin also mirrored this Cold War mentality during his 2012 campaign with his
anti-American rhetoric (CBS News, 2012). More often than not, however, this discourse becomes rampant among elites and
media amidst diplomatic crises and targets mainly the domestic audience.
There are certainly many historical, geostrategic, economic and political factors that shape the foreign policies of the
United States and Russia towards one another. Nonetheless, the stereotypical negative image of the other perpetuates the
distrust, suspicion and confrontation among foreign policy elites and limits the choices available for diplomatic engagement.
What we are interested in this article is how this mentality of mutual bias is revived at certain times. We start with the
assertion that the Cold War mentality is not a constant but that it is reignited during times of international crises, such as the
Kosovo war in 1999, Iraqi invasion of 2003, or the Ukrainian Orange Revolution of 2004. These breaking points in relations get
reported and interpreted by the media in frames that are unfavorable and critical of the other side. The public generally lacks
interest in or access to information on international events, which by their very nature are very complex. As such, people take
* Corresponding author.
0967-067X/$ see front matter 2013 The Regents of the University of California. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.postcomstud.2013.08.003
514 O. Bayulgen, E. Arbatli / Communist and Post-Communist Studies 46 (2013) 513527
their cues from the media in formulating their opinion of the other side. The media plays a key role in interpreting such events
for the broader public.
Meanwhile, the foreign policy elite uses these media frames and public perceptions to decide which foreign policy
behavior is acceptable and justiable. The media gives priority to certain issues and perspectives and puts them on the
political agenda of decision-makers. The connections between media framing, public opinion and foreign policy are certainly
far from being simple and straight-forward. The literature, in fact, outlines a dizzying array of interactions between the public,
leaders and the media in very complex and circular ways. For instance, the media is shown to have a strong agenda-setting
function for foreign policy-makers (Denhan, 1997; Malek, 1996; Merrill, 1995; Robinson, 2000; Hallin, 1994). Alternatively, it
is argued that the media is largely inuenced by elite rhetoric (Entman and Page, 1994; Zaller and Chiu, 2000; Bennett et al.,
2006) and that the public opinion relies on information shortcuts or heuristic cues (Sniderman et al., 1991; Popkin, 1994) that
are mainly opinions of trusted elites as reected by the media (Auerbach and Bloch-Elkon, 2005; Groeling and Baum, 2008).
Identifying the exact contours of this interdependent relationship and the direction of inuence among these three central
variables has been a core difculty in research efforts; and in this paper our goal is not to resolve this complexity. Instead, we
focus on the particular role the media plays in constructing a narrative around such crises and shaping public opinion. We
believe that the media construction of crises and the consequent public opinion have had a signicant effect on triggering and
perpetuating the Cold War mentality that continue to inuence relations between the two countries.
The 2008 RussiaGeorgia war over the breakaway region of South Ossetia is one such breaking point in the relations
between the two countries. After a series of clashes between the South Ossetian militia and Georgian army troops throughout
the summer, on the eve of August 7, Georgia launched a military attack on South Ossetias capital, Tskhinvali. The next day,
Russia responded with a large-scale air and ground attack on Georgia. Not only did Russian troops gain control over South
Ossetian territory but they also entered Georgia proper and occupied Georgian cities of Poti and Gori quickly. On August 12,
the two sides agreed to a French-brokered ceasere and Russian president Medvedev ordered an end to Russian military
operations in Georgia. On August 26, the Russian government recognized the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia
and nally after much delay completed the withdrawal of majority of its troops from Georgia by October 8. The ve-day war
killed hundreds, and left thousands of refugees in temporary shelters. The war was seen by many as the lowest point in US
Russia relations since the Cold War, if not an afrmation of the new Cold War itself (King, 2008; Sestanovich, 2008).
In this article, we focus on the way the US elite media framed this conict and how this framing affected the way the
American public assigned blame in the war.1 We believe that the case study of the 2008 RussiaGeorgia war offers a hard test
for the role the media plays in perpetuating the Cold War mentality. First of all, this was a war that the US was not directly
involved in. There were no vital US interests involved to give the media a mobilizing or rally around the ag mission.2
Therefore, there were not many reasons for the media to be unfavorable towards Russia in reporting the conict.
Secondly, given the complexity of the conict, there was no obvious, undisputed aggressor in this war. There were in fact
two intertwined wars: an intrastate war between Georgia and its breakaway region South Ossetia and an inter-state war
between Russia and Georgia. There were two contradictory interpretations of what actually happened and thus no over-
whelming incentive for the US media to be favorable to Georgia over Russia. The Russian side (as well as the South Ossetian
leaders) accused the Georgian government for starting the war. They claimed that Georgia attacked South Ossetia and
committed acts of genocide against South Ossetians as well as Russian peacekeepers in the region. They argued that Russia got
involved only to protect the Russian peacekeepers and compatriots in South Ossetia. The Georgian side, on the other hand,
argued that it was merely protecting its territorial integrity. The government claimed the attacks were a response to the heavy
shelling of Georgian villages by South Ossetian militia and Russian troops. It accused Russia for using the skirmishes between
South Ossetian rebel groups and the Georgian government as a pretext to invade Georgia and punish her for her pro-Western
orientation and democratic government.
Even though there was imbalance in the use of force by the militarily much stronger side, Russia, there were many third-
party accounts from intelligence agencies, human rights organizations and scholars that challenged the view that Georgia was
victimized by Russian aggressiveness (Chivers and Barry, 2008; Ertel et al., 2008; Hahn, 2008; Tsygankov and Tarver-
Wahlquist, 2009; Tsygankov, 2010). For instance, the much-anticipated September 2009 report of the European Unions
Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Conict in Georgia (IIFFMCG) laid the blame for initiating the armed
conict at Georgias feet, but suggested that both parties share the blame for the long-simmering conict (Lobjakas, 2009).
Moreover, the European media outlets have used very different frames in their coverage of this conict, demonstrating that
the negative framing of Russias role in this conict was not necessarily warranted by the events on the ground.3
Despite the lack of a compelling reason to take sides, the US media was accused of being biased against Russia in the
coverage of the conict. One of the rst people to openly voice this claim was former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev. In a
New York Times opinion piece, dated August 20, Gorbachev accused the West of mounting a propaganda attack against
1
A similar analysis of the Russian media coverage and public opinion responses no doubt would provide valuable and interesting comparisons but it is
beyond the scope of this article.
2
In this approach, the media tends to view their task in terms of reinforcing national consensus and is highly supportive of the government especially
when national interest is threatened.
3
Campaign in the Air Waves: Europeans Divided on Georgian War: European Media, EU-Russia Center (2008), available at http://www.eu-russiacentre.
org. This article argues that the leading European media is divided on whom to blame for the conict, reecting the political divisions within the EU as well
as the status of their relationship with Russia.
O. Bayulgen, E. Arbatli / Communist and Post-Communist Studies 46 (2013) 513527 515
Russia, with the American news media leading the way and he claimed that the news coverage has been far from fair and
balanced, especially during the rst days of the crisis (Gorbachev, 2008). Along the same vein, the organization Fairness &
Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) argued that the US media seemed to use a Cold War mentality in presenting the conict as a
black and white struggle between Moscows despotic aggression and Georgias pro-Western democracy (FAIR, 2008).
Did the US elite media actually report and interpret the conict in anti-Russia frames as some have claimed? If so, did the
opinion of American public toward Russia become more negative after the conict as a result of the media coverage? How did
the Cold War mentality that was reinforced in the media and reected in public opinion affect the relations between Russia
and the United States in the aftermath of the conict? These are the questions that our paper sets out to answer. The rest of
the paper is organized as follows. In the next section, we overview the literature on framing and agenda setting functions of
the media to understand the ways in which the US media may have contributed to the perpetuation of the Cold War mentality
in the aftermath of the 2008 RussiaGeorgia war. Next, we describe our research design and methods for data collection. We
nd that the two leading US newspapers, The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, were indeed more biased against the
Russian side at least initially and that this type of negative media framing has had some effect on the way people assigned
blame in this conict. Finally, we discuss the implications of these ndings, particularly in light of the already-sensitive and
tenuous relations between the US and Russia.
1. Media framing and agenda setting
The role that the media plays in the construction of meaning through which people interpret the world is a well-studied
topic in communications studies. Media is a powerful tool in telling us what issues to think about and how to think about
them. It is generally believed that the media has the power to inuence public opinion by emphasizing certain issues over
others and advancing an agenda. The agenda-setting functions of the media may be especially strong when it comes to in-
ternational news, because most individuals have no personal experience with and/or access to news events in foreign
countries. Thus, they may rely extensively on the media as the sole source of information and interpretation about the world.
The agenda-setting role of the media in international news is also important for the way in which it may affect foreign policy.
It can be argued that decision makers pay attention to the media coverage of international events in shaping their foreign
policy decisions with the assumption that the degree of media attention to an issue reects its importance to the public.
To understand the role of the media in contemporary life, researchers from a variety of disciplines draw on the concept of
framing. According to Goffman (1974) a frame is a scheme of interpretation in which the particulars of events and activities to
which we attend are organized and made sensible. Gitlin (1980:7) denes media frames as persistent patterns of cognition,
interpretation, and presentation of selection, emphasis and exclusion, by which symbol-handlers routinely organize
discourse, whether verbal or visual. Entman (1993) argues that frames promote a particular problem denition, causal
interpretation, moral evaluation and treatment recommendation for the item described (p.52).
There is a signicant line of research that focuses on media frames, how they are created, and how differently they are used
by media outlets (Entman, 1991; Lee and Craig, 1992; Park, 2003). Among the framing studies, a few scholars have focused on
one-sided framing in international news coverage, with the PalestinianIsraeli conict getting the most attention (Viser,
2003; Zelizer et al., 2002). But what exactly does one-sided media framing mean? Is there such a thing as balanced framing?
The major premise of framing theory is that an issue can be viewed from a variety of perspectives (Chong and Druckman,
2007). Tuchman (1978) argues that news provide a frame that depicts a particular view of the world. If framing is the act of
constructing reality, then the way an issue is framed reects one view of the issue, out of many possibilities. For Reese (2001,
10), for instance, framing is ultimately an exercise of power. Entman (1993, 55) argues that frames highlight some aspects of
reality while obscuring others, and as such they play a major role in the exertion of political power. It is through framing that
political actors shape the texts that inuence or prime the agendas and considerations that people think about (Entman, 2007,
165).
Ultimately, then, no framing can provide a perfectly balanced presentation of news. This being said, however, in con-
structing a reality for the audience, the media can sometimes frame the issue in a way that overwhelmingly favors one side
over the other in a current or potential dispute. Especially in international conicts without clear victims and villains,
journalists can legitimate the behavior of one side of the conict by giving disproportionate salience to its justications and by
emphasizing certain images or words that delineate its victimization. Alternatively, they can project a condemnation of the
other side by continually emphasizing its aggressive behavior and downplaying the specic explanations for its behavior.
Through this kind of one-sided framing that persist over time and across media outlets, the media may systematically and
inadvertently distribute power to particular groups or causes. Entman (2007, 166) denes this as content bias, referring to
consistent patterns in the framing of mediated communication that promote the inuence of one side in conicts.4
4
It is important to note that one-sided framing or bias need not be conscious or intentional. In other words, it could exist even where journalists and
news organizations possess no ideological goals, indeed where they consciously pursue balance (Entman, 2007, 167). There are certain practical limitations
to media neutrality such as the inability of journalists to report all available stories and facts, and the requirement that selected facts be linked into a
coherent narrative. Moreover, journalists may be stuck with the limited sources that are available to them, especially when covering international news. For
instance, many point out to the regional and thematic imbalance that exists in news coverage of the world; that certain countries, regions and themes are
more consistently covered than others (Wilhoit and Weaver, 1983; Stevenson and Shaw, 1984; Hess, 1996; Chang, 1998; Wu, 1998; Golan and Wanta, 2003;
Hatchen and Scotton, 2007).
When the causes of war are not clear-cut as in this case and the identity of the villains and victims are open to debate, the
type of framing used in the media even when there is no discernible intention may make a signicant difference in
peoples construction of reality and perception of whom to blame. Therefore, our rst goal is to understand how two leading
national newspapers in the US framed the conict and whether or not they overwhelmingly depicted Russia as an aggressor.
We are also concerned with the effects of media on public opinion, that is, the agenda setting function of the media. The
original agenda-setting research proposed a moderate inuence of media on public opinion. In their 1972 study, McCombs
and Shaw made the important observation that media coverage of an issue increases the importance of that issue for the
public. They also noted that the agenda-setting inuence of mass media is the transfer of salience from the media to the public
agenda. This important media effect is particularly strong in the context of international news events. Since the public has
limited experience with foreign countries, it relies extensively on the media as an important source of information about the
world. For instance, many scholars found a strong correlation between exposure to foreign news and the salience of those
issues for the public (Salwen and Matera, 1992; Wanta and Hu, 1993; Bissell, 2002; Soroka, 2003; Wanta et al., 2004). Some
have even associated exposure to foreign news with relatively favorable feelings toward other countries (Reilly, 1979; McNelly
and Izcaray, 1986; Semetko et al., 1992).
Since the seminal work by McCombs and Shaw (1972), the agenda-setting hypothesis has been expanded beyond issue
salience to include attribute salience. Also known as the second level agenda setting, this theory states that media coverage
not only inuences what we think about but also how we think about that issue (Wanta et al., 2004). Frames inuence public
opinion by stressing specic values, facts and other considerations, endowing them with greater apparent relevance to the
issue than they might appear to have under an alternative frame (Nelson et al., 1997, 569). Through framing, media generates
cognitive and affective activities within individuals (McLeod et al., 1995). As Price and Tewksbury (1995, 382) put it, framing
assumes that the way in which choices are presented to people the way choices are framed will affect the likelihood that
people will select particular options. This idea of framing effects is what connects framing and agenda-setting theories,
since both focus on peoples perception of reality through the meaning constructed by the media.
The second-level agenda setting theory has been predominantly used in mass communication research (McCombs et al.,
1997; Golan and Wanta, 2001; Tedesco, 2001). However, the application of the theory in the area of international news still
remains limited. Golan and Wanta (2003), for instance, examined the coverage of international elections on US newscasts and
concluded that negative coverage patterns led viewers to connect negative attributes to the perception of countries. Also,
Wanta et al. (2004) found that the more negative coverage a nation received, the more likely respondents were to think
negatively about that nation. Similar to these studies, using the agenda setting theory, we propose to study the relationship
between the media coverage of the August 2008 RussiaGeorgia conict and the US public opinion towards these countries.
2. Methods and research design
We employ two methodological strategies to answer the theoretical questions stated above. First, we employ a content
analysis of two leading national newspapers in the US Second, we employ a national public opinion survey. Together, these
methodological strategies provide for rigorous, yet broad-based, tests.
2.1. Content analysis
In the rst part of the research, we use the content analysis method to study the media framing of the RussiaGeorgia
conict. Content analysis is appropriate here since it is extensively used to examine media coverage of events. It provides for a
systematic analysis of detecting meaning, identifying intentions and describing trends in communication content (Holsti,
1969; Neuendorf, 2002; Krippendorff, 2004; Riffe et al., 2005).
As for the choice of media, we focus on print media and quality press rather than popular press, because the former is the
main source of foreign policy news with extensive and wide-ranging coverage (Beaudoin and Thorson, 2002; Paletz, 2002).
Print media is also the main source for US foreign policy decision makers (Merrill, 1995; Malek, 1996).5 Even though it has
been shown that most people learn about the world from watching television (Larson, 1984), there is also extensive evidence
of an inter-media agenda setting process. Most local newspapers and television news programs take their cues on the salience
and attribute of issues from elite newspapers (Reese and Danielian, 1989; Protess and McCombs, 1991; Golan, 2006).
The newspaper articles analyzed in this study were drawn from the New York Times (NYT) and the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
These newspapers were chosen because they are two of the leading media outlets in the United States with national cir-
culation and are inuential in setting the agenda for other print and visual media (Weiss, 1974; Gans, 1979; Merrill and Fisher,
1980; Dreier, 1982). For instance, the NYT is considered the American newspaper of record (Chang et al., 1987).
We examined the news articles and opinion pieces that appeared in these newspapers between August 1 and September
15, 2008. Even though the skirmishes between South Ossetian militia, Georgian and Russian troops began early on in the
5
Generally in the literature the distinction between popular and elite press focuses on the content, target audience, format and journalistic ethics. Elite
press is considered more serious, rational, text-based with a focus on hard news whereas popular press is seen as more sensational with more attention to
soft news that is more colorfully people-oriented. It is also believed that elite press write for an educated, middle to upper class audience, who are more
likely to be the opinion leaders in society.
summer of 2008, the events were sporadic and thus were not getting comprehensive coverage in the US media. The end date
of September 15 was picked because beyond this date the conict subsided considerably and media coverage became very
infrequent.
The New York Times articles were drawn from the New York Times archive database and the Wall Street Journal articles
from the Factiva database. All these articles were searched with the key words Russia and Georgia. After eliminating the
articles that were not directly related to the recent conict, a total of 240 articlesd97 from the New York Times and 143 from
the Wall Street Journal were selected for content analysis.
Upon a preliminary analysis of 10 randomly selected articles from each newspaper, we came up with 8 frames that were
overwhelmingly used in the coverage of this conict. Russian aggression frame was used to refer to the intensity and hostility
with which Russian troops advanced into Georgia proper. Georgian aggression frame, on the other hand, referred to the
Georgian military offensive against the South Ossetians. Most articles also provided victimization frames for either sides
actions. The Georgian victimization frame referred to the suffering of the Georgian people in the hands of Russian troops. For
instance, the following sentence was coded as using the Georgian victimization frame: For more than a week, the villages on
the roads running south from Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, some 20 miles to Gori, a central Georgian city now
under Russian occupation, have been a corridor or grief, violence and crime (Chivers, 2008).
Russian victimization frame predominantly covered the killings and suffering of the Russian troops and peacekeeping
forces in the region. South Ossetian victimization frame was also present, referring to the suffering of South Ossetians as a
result of Georgian government actions and Georgian troops. In addition, the justication frames tried to legitimize some
violent actions by portraying them in an acceptable way. Russian justication frame covered topics like Georgias ambition to
join NATO and the need to protect the lives and dignity of Russian citizens. The Georgian justication frame, on the other hand,
focused on self-defense and territorial integrity claims by the Georgian government to explain its behavior. In addition, we
included references to the Cold War period in the Cold War frame. The unit of analysis in coding for frames was the sentence.
In the case that there was more than one frame that applied to a sentence, we picked the most dominant frame. In most cases,
the dominant frame emphasized in a sentence was unmistakable, as in the case of the following sentence using the Russian
aggression frame: This brutality has been conrmed although on a smaller scaledin the spectacle of the Russian army
occupying a sovereign country, moving through it as it pleases, advancing and retreating at will, and casually destroying the
military and civilian infrastructures of a young democracy as an astonished world watches (Lvy, 2008).
We consider the combination of Russian aggression, Georgian justication and Georgian victimization frames to be an in-
dicator for anti-Russia bias and alternatively Georgian aggression, Russian justication, Russian victimization and South Ossetian
victimization frames to be an indicator for anti-Georgia bias in the media. Therefore our rst hypothesis in this paper is:
H1. There was an anti-Russia bias in the coverage of the RussiaGeorgia war in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
2.2. Survey
For the second part of the research, we used data that was drawn from a survey conducted by the Center for Survey
Research and Analysis (CSRA) at the University of Connecticut, using a Random digit dialing (RDD) telephone sample of adult,
non-institutionalized residents of the contiguous United States. Telephone numbers were dialed daily from September 15,
2008 through October 30, 2008, with interviewers attempting up to 6 calls to contact potential respondents.6 After securing
cooperation, interviewers used Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing to administer questions to and record the re-
sponses of 1000 participants. We asked two sets of questions in the survey. The rst set included questions directly about the
RussiaGeorgia conict and its coverage in the media. We asked the respondents whether they have been following the news
of the conict closely and which side they blamed in this conict. In order to compare public opinion toward Russia before
and after the conict, we also asked a question about whether respondents think Russia is an American ally, wording it exactly
the same way as a CBS survey did in 2007.
Finally, the second set of questions in the survey was about how often the respondents get their news media from various
sources: local, network, and cable television, local and national newspapers, radio, and internet. The purpose for including the
latter set of questions was to cross-tabulate them with the rst set to see if there are any general patterns emerging between
media coverage and public opinion. We also conducted regression tests to analyze the relationship between the publics
exposure to the news about the conict and their propensity to blame one side over the other.
We assume that the negative framing of Russia as the aggressor has reignited the Cold War image and fear of Russia among
the US public. Based on second-level agenda setting theory, we also assume that there is a correlation between the level of
exposure to the news of the conict and public opinion on Russia. Therefore, our next set of hypotheses is:
H2. US public opinion toward Russia has become more negative after this conict.
H3. Those people who more closely followed the news of the conict blamed Russia more than those who rarely followed or did
not follow the conict.
6
The response rate was 31.4 percent. Although not as high as some national surveys such as the National Election Studies or the General Social Surveys,
research has shown that lower response rates do not necessary yield lower quality data (Keeter et al., 2000).
Table 1
Framing bias results.
Neutral Anti-Georgia Anti-Russia Mean coefcient

WSJ 31% (45) 5% (7) 64% (91) 0.18
NYT 38% (37) 10% (10) 52% (50) 0.13
Total 34% (82) 7% (17) 59% (141) 0.16a
Percentages are rounded up to the closest integer. Number of articles is in parentheses.

a
The t-statistic is 11.03 for the mean coefcient.Source: Authors database compiled from New York Times online archives and Factiva
3. Content analysis results and discussion
As described above, the sample consists of 240 articles (143 from WSJ and 97 from NYT) for the period between August 1st
and September 15th 2008. For both papers, the analysis includes both news stories and opinion pieces/editorials for the time
period covered. The articles were coded on several dimensions: framing in terms of aggression, justication and victimization
on both sides, and the type of sources used. Approximately 10% of the articles were double coded, using a random sample
representative of the percentage of total number of articles in each newspaper (10 articles from NYT and 15 articles from WSJ).
The intercoder reliability scores were calculated separately for frames and sources using three different methods to ensure
validity: percentage, Scotts pi and Cohens kappa. The scores for frames were 92% match for percentage and 0.87 for both
Scotts pi and Cohens kappa. For sources, they were 96% for percentage and 0.93 for both Scotts pi and Cohens kappa. These
scores are well over the conventional standards accepted in the literature (Lombard et al., 2002; Neuendorf, 2002).
The results for imbalance in framing were measured by forming a bias index that calculates mean coefcients. In this
index, for each article the number of Russian aggression (Ragg), Georgian victimization (Gvict), and Georgian justication
(Gjust) frames were added to arrive at the total number of anti-Russia frames (aRf). Similarly, for each article we added
Georgian aggression (Gagg), Russian victimization (Rvict), Russian justication (Rjust), and South Ossetian victimization
(SOvict) to arrive at the total number of anti-Georgia frames (aGf). Then, the difference of these totals was divided by the total
number of sentences (SeTot) in each article.
As it logically follows, the frame imbalance coefcient can be any value between 1 and 1: 1 representing an article that is
completely anti-Russia and 1 representing one that is completely anti-Georgia in framing. In the most basic form of this
index, only an article that scores 0 would be considered completely neutral. However, given how unlikely it is to receive a
score of precisely 0, we relaxed the assumption of neutrality by introducing a higher threshold: Neutrality is dened as any
article scoring between 0.10 and 0.10. Any score above this value was coded as anti-Russia and values below the threshold
were coded as anti-Georgia.7
Our rst hypothesis tests whether or not there is any anti-Russia bias in the reporting of the conict. Our analysis conrms
H1, that negative framing of Russia exists in both newspapers. The results in Table 1 show that on total 59% of all the articles
used predominantly anti-Russia frames, as opposed to 34% neutral and only 7% anti-Georgia framing. The mean coefcient
also shows that both NYT and WSJ had on average anti-Russia framing of the conict. A t-statistic of around 11.03 on the mean
imbalance coefcient suggests that the mean 0.16 is signicantly different from zero, indicating that anti-Russia framing
exists.
It is interesting to observe some of the differences between the media coverage of NYT and WSJ. As seen in Table 1, 38% of
NYT articles, as opposed to 31% in WSJ, were neutral in terms of framing. The anti-Russia framing represented a bigger gap;
WSJ having 64% (91 articles) anti-Russia frames compared to NYTs 52% (50 articles). In terms of articles with an anti-Georgia
bias, WSJ had half the amount compared to NYT, although both newspapers represented very low numbers of such articles (5
and 10% respectively). In terms of mean bias coefcient for framing, WSJ was again conrmed to have more anti-Russia bias,
although the difference is relatively low. When the bias index is broken down to the use of individual frames over time for
newspaper, we can also note other differences in the way the two newspapers reported the conict. As seen in Table 2, the
dominant frame in WSJ over time was Russian aggression, represented in 56% of all the frames coded, and the use of this
frame increased over time. Georgian victimization was the second dominant frame, although not nearly as prominent as
aggression. NYT on the other hand, has preferred a more balanced use of Russian aggression and Georgian victimization
frames in its news coverage. This is an interesting nding in terms of the journalistic approach of the newspapers, suggesting
that while NYT has focused more on the humanitarian side of the conict, WSJ has preferred to focus generally on power
politics.
The differences between the NYT and WSJ are further conrmed by the observation that WSJ had more Cold War frames
than NYT. NYT had 31 articles (32%) that directly refer to Cold War as opposed to the 52 articles (36%) in WSJ. Additionally,
7
To the best of our knowledge, there is no established measure in the literature that could be used as a threshold for neutrality. We acknowledge that
this threshold is arbitrary, however, given our hypotheses that the media coverage will be one-sided, this threshold constitutes a harder test for our case by
making the neutrality easier to achieve for a given article. We also account for the fact that this conict was not one among equal powers, thus a slight anti-
Russia framing imbalance could be expected. Additionally, to the best of our knowledge there is no established measure in the literature that could be used
as a threshold for neutrality.
Table 2
Percentage of each frame in total number of frames over time.
Ragg Gjust Gvict Gagg Rjust Rvict Sovict

WSJ
Aug 1Aug 12 52% 9% 14% 6% 16% 0% 4%
Aug 13Aug 23 55% 6% 16% 3% 11% 1% 3%
Aug 24Sep 15 64% 3% 16% 4% 10% 0% 1%
Mean 56% 6% 15% 4% 12% 1% 2%
NYT
Aug 1Aug 12 35% 8% 25% 7% 11% 1% 13%
Aug 13Aug 23 40% 3% 27% 9% 13% 2% 7%
Aug 24Sep 15 33% 6% 32% 7% 11% 0% 11%
Mean 36% 5% 29% 8% 12% 1% 10%
Total
Aug 1Aug 12 45% 9% 18% 6% 14% 0% 7%
Aug 13Aug 23 50% 5% 20% 5% 12% 1% 4%
Aug 24Sep 15 48% 5% 24% 6% 10% 0% 6%
Mean 48% 6% 21% 5% 12% 1% 5%
Source: Authors database compiled from New York Times online archives and Factiva. Percentages are rounded up to the closest integer.
NYT had four times more Georgian aggression and ve times more South Ossetian victimization frames, conrming that NYT
demonstrated less anti-Russia bias in its coverage. Another aspect to note in this breakdown is that both of the newspapers
have refrained from using the Russian victimization frame. Although this could be attributed to the fact that Russian war
casualties were much less numerous, it may also indicate a conscious decision about who they believed the victim was.
The ndings so far could raise the following question: Since both opinion pieces and news reports are included in the
analysis, can opinion pieces be driving the framing bias? In other words, are opinion pieces more negative against Russia than
news reports? A comparison of opinion pieces and news reports in these two newspapers shows that NYT was completely
neutral (a mean coefcient of 0.00) in its choice of opinion pieces and portrayed an anti-Russia bias in its news coverage. WSJ,
on the other hand, produced an almost identical amount of anti-Russia bias both in its news coverage and the opinion pieces
(with a difference of 0.01 between the two types See Table 3). Thus the assumption that framing imbalance may be due to
opinion pieces more than direct news analysis is not supported by the data.
The anti-Russia framing that we nd in these newspapers can also be attributed to the sources that are used. News sources
are signicant for demonstrating who inuences media content and how journalists tell a story or convey a certain message.
Framing of an issue may depend on the source because different sources can provide different information to journalists and
journalists decide whether or not to use them extensively and how much salience to give them (Shoemaker and Reese, 1996).
The disproportionate use of sources by journalists may partly be a result of the ability of one side to convey its message
more aggressively than the other side. For instance, in the RussiaGeorgia conict many have argued that Georgia won the
image war by using a Western public relations rm as well as a young, energetic, Western educated president to convince the
world that Russia is responsible for starting the conict and committing the atrocities. As one of the New York Times articles
stated it was not until four days after the conict began an eon in the 24-hour news universe that a top Kremlin ofcial
was sent to CNN to counter Mr. Saakashvili (Levy, 2008a).
In order to study this possible relationship between news sources and framing bias, we rst coded for Russian and
Georgian sources separately. Any person and organization quoted or paraphrased providing information in stories was coded
as a source. All the government, media and private sources from Russia were coded as Russian sources and those from Georgia
as Georgian sources. The unit of analysis in coding for the sources was the sentence. Next, we devised a measure of source
imbalance index. In creating this, we used the same logic as the frame imbalance index. For each article, the number of
Russian sources (Rs) and Georgian sources (Gs) were coded and their difference was divided by the total number of sentences
(SeTot) in the article. We applied the same threshold of neutrality to the source imbalance index as we did in frame imbalance
index; any score between 0.10 and 0.10 represents a neutral article, a score above 0.10 means anti-Russia sourcing and a
score below 0.10 implies anti-Georgia sourcing.
Table 4 shows the distribution of the use of sources in the two newspapers. Both NYT and WSJ have relied almost equally
on Russian and Georgian sources in their news coverage and on total the use of sources were neutral in 62.5% of the articles.
Table 3
Article types and framing bias.
News Opinion pieces Percentage of opinion pieces

WSJ 0.18 0.19 20% (29)
NYT 0.15 0.00 11% (11)
Total 0.16 0.14 17% (40)
Source: Authors database compiled from New York Times online archives and Factiva. Percentages are rounded up to the closest integer.
Number of articles is in parentheses.
Table 4
Source bias results.
Neutral Anti-Georgian Anti-Russian

WSJ 69% (98) 18% (26) 13% (19)
NYT 53% (52) 23% (22) 24% (23)
Total 62.5% (150) 20% (48) 17.5% (42)
Source: Authors database compiled from New York Times online archives and Factiva. Percentages are rounded up to the closest
integer. Number of articles is in parentheses.
Table 5
Percentage and mean coefcient of bias in framing over time.
Neutral Anti-Georgia Anti-Russia Mean coefcient

WSJ
Aug 1Aug 12 19% (6) 10% (3) 71% (22) 0.21
Aug 13Aug 23 29% (22) 5% (4) 65% (49) 0.18
Aug 24Sept 15 46% (17) 0% (0) 54% (20) 0.14
NYT
Aug 1Aug 12 42% (8) 5% (1) 53% (10) 0.14
Aug 13Aug 23 34% (13) 8% (3) 58% (22) 0.13
Aug 24Sept 15 40% (16) 15% (6) 45% (18) 0.13
Total
Aug 1Aug 12 28% (14) 8% (4) 64% (32) 0.18
Aug 13Aug 23 31% (35) 6% (7) 63% (71) 0.16
Aug 24Sept 15 43% (33) 8% (6) 49% (38) 0.14
Source: Authors database compiled from New York Times online archives and Factiva. Percentages are rounded up to the closest integer. Number of articles
is in parentheses.
This nding is interesting given the imbalance in framing by both newspapers. However, when we looked at individual ar-
ticles, we found a very high (0.567) and signicant (p 0.00) association between the source and the framing imbalance
indices. In other words, an increase in the number of Georgian sources used in an article is correlated with an increase in anti-
Russia framing. As it logically follows, the increase in the number of Russian sources would also mean an increase in anti-
Georgia framing.
Although not tested in this study, the imbalance in framing may also be a result of the tendency of journalists to rely
heavily on government ofcials to report on foreign events especially given the decline in international news bureaus in
recent years (Cohen, 1963; Sigal, 1973; Chang, 1993; Herman, 1993; Malek and Wiegand, 1996). Cohen (1963, 28) for instance
argues that journalists are susceptible to the governments claims because government ofcials are prime sources of news
merely by virtue of their positions in government. Conformity to the governments foreign policy agenda may indeed have
been an important factor in the coverage of this conict in the US media. The US government has taken an openly pro-
Georgian stance during the course of the conict, which is reected in the medias portrayal of events. Georgia was seen
as a US ally aspiring to join NATO and as an example of Western-style democracy in the troubled region of Caucasus. The Tblisi
cables, part of the thousands of cables made available to news organizations by WikiLeaks, display the close relationship
between US diplomats and the Georgian government and the fact that Washington relied heavily on the Saakashvili gov-
ernments accounts of what happened in the 2008 conict (Chivers, 2010).
Finally, even though we nd anti-Russia framing in the coverage of this conict, it is also important to analyze whether the
type of framing varies depending on the stage of the conict. Berry (1990) and Auerbach and Bloch-Elkon (2005) argue that
different stages of international crises elicit different responses from media organizations and therefore framing of the issues
at hand vary dramatically from the onset phase of the conict all the way to the de-escalation phase.8 In order to analyze
whether anti-Russia framing in the media is consistent throughout the coverage, we divided the coverage into 3 phases. As
the rst phase of the conict (escalation stage), we took August 1 to August 12. August 1st was the ofcial start of the war and
August 12th was the ceasere brokered by French President Sarkozy. The second phase (negotiation stage) took place be-
tween August 13 and August 23. During this period, the ofcial war was over but the terms of the ceasere were not
completely implemented, skirmishes continued between two sides and both sides were negotiating with each other as well
as with outside forces on the nal status of the region. By August 23, Russia announced that it withdrew most of its troops
from Georgia. Finally, the third phase (de-escalation stage) took place during August 24 and September 15. There was no
longer any armed confrontation and both sides continued to make their case in international platforms.
8
In their analysis on the coverage of Bosnian crisis in the US media, Auerbach and Bloch-Elkon (2005) nd a signicant association between the position
of the press and the stage of crisis. For instance, they nd that while the humanitarian meta-frame was predominant in the rst two stages of the conict,
the domestic politics/economics meta-frame dominated at the de-escalation phase coverage. The authors also show that the newspapers were highly
critical of the Clinton administrations policy towards Bosnia in the pre-crisis stage of the conict, and they gradually shifted towards a more supportive
attitude as the crisis evolved through escalation and de-escalation stages.
Table 6
Who do you think is more to blame for the conict between Russia and GeorgiaRussia or Georgia? Would you say that you have been following news of the
conict between Russia and Georgia very closely, fairly closely, not too closely, or not at all closely?
Russia Georgia Both Neither Dont know Refused

Very closely
Row percentage 70% 18% 9% 2% 1% 0%
Column percentage 11% 17% 17% 18% 0% 0%
Somewhat closely
Row percentage 75% 10% 7% 1% 6% 1%
Not too closely
Row percentage 63% 10% 3% 1% 21% 1%
Not at all too closely
Row percentage 24% 5% 2% 1% 68% 0%
Refused
Row percentage 78% 0% 0% 0% 0% 22%
Source: Authors calculations based on UCONN CSRA survey (Sept 15Oct 30, 2008)
Given this breakup of the different stages of the conict, we expected media to be quite neutral in the rst stage of the
conict given the element of surprise, uncertainty about what is really happening, and a lack of clear direction from the
government. We further assumed that neutrality would disappear as propaganda from each side increased and the position of
the US government became clearer.
The results in Table 5 suggest an opposite trend: that anti-Russia framing decreased as the conict moved towards de-
escalation. This was especially true in WSJ: anti-Russia framing steadily decreased as time passed, coupled with a decrease
in anti-Georgia framing. This clearly shows that WSJ moved towards neutrality regarding both sides of the conict over time.
The mean bias coefcient also moves from 0.21 to 0.14, with a 33 percent decrease. Although there is no such linear pattern in
NYT coverage, it is interesting to note that the number of anti-Georgia frames increased over time, and were tripled at the last
period compared to the onset phase. Overall, the anti-Russia frames slightly decreased as the conict evolved.
There might be several reasons for this change. First of all, Russia as the winner in the conict may have had more chances
of representation in the international arena than Georgia, thus over time had its point of view increasingly represented in the
media. By virtue of being the greater power, inevitably it has more leverage to dominate these platforms. Also, it may be that
the US ofcials chose not to criticize Georgia until the conict was over. Only at the de-escalation stage were the strategic
blunders of the Georgian government voiced in the media. Finally, since military excursions were over at the later stages of
the conict, we spot less frames related to Russian aggression and Georgian victimization as time passes. Thus, the decrease in
the framing index can be attributed to the idiosyncrasies of the case, as well as to the fact that a conict among unequal
powers will inevitably be reected as such.
4. Public opinion survey results and discussion
The survey ndings clearly show negative public opinion against Russia in this conict. 57% of the people surveyed said
that they blame Russia as opposed to only 9% that blame Georgia. Even though there were a signicant number of dont
know answers (27%), only 6% said that they either blamed both or neither. Similarly, in response to the question whether
they feel that Russia is a close ally of the United States, 38% said that Russia is either a close ally or at least friendly but 51% said
that Russia is either unfriendly or an enemy. This response is very similar to a question asked in a survey conducted by ABC
News/Washington Post between August 19 and 22, 2008.9 According to that survey, 39% of the respondents said Russia was
either a close ally or at least friendly, whereas 53% said she was unfriendly or an enemy.
In order to understand whether this conict had any impact on what American people think of Russia, it would have been
ideal to have a prior time series data on public attitudes on Russia. However since it is impossible to go back in time and
conduct a survey of public attitudes towards Russia, we had to rely on a CBS News Poll of June 2007 (the only recent one to our
knowledge) as our baseline of public opinion. The ally question from that survey that we repeated in our survey unfortu-
nately does not sufciently gauge the opinion on Russia but it is the closest we could nd. According to the June 2007 CBS poll,
68% of the respondents called Russia an ally or friendly (as opposed to our surveys 38%) and 24% called Russia unfriendly or an
enemy (compared to our 51%). These results albeit preliminary seem to lend some support to our second hypothesis that
the US public opinion towards Russia has become more negative after the 2008 RussiaGeorgia war.
Cross-tabulating the results between conict and media questions demonstrates that there is an interesting pattern be-
tween media consumption and public opinion. For instance, Table 6 shows that 61% of the respondents who blame Russia
9
The ABC News/Washington Post survey was based on telephone interviews with a national sample of 1108. Interviews were conducted by TNS
Intersearch. Results were weighted to be representative of a national adult population.
have followed the news very and somewhat closely as opposed to 38% that did not follow the news too much and not at all.
Similarly, of all the people who followed the news of the conict very closely, 70% blame Russia as opposed to 10% who blame
Georgia. The discrepancy in these percentages falls dramatically when looked among respondents who did not follow the
news at all: 24% blame Russia as opposed to 5% who blame Georgia. These results provide initial support to H3, that those who
more closely followed the news of the conict blamed Russia more than those who rarely followed or did not follow the
conict.
Finally, in order to further test H3, we offer regression results from the survey. As the dependent variable we use the
question Who do you think is more to blame for the conict between Russia and the Republic of Georgia? All respondents who
answered that Russia was to blame (n 603) are coded as 1; all respondents who answered Republic of Georgia, both,
neither, or dont know (n 388) are coded as 0; and all respondents who refused to answer (n 9) are coded as missing.
This creates a dependent variable that focuses on whether the respondent has placed blame squarely on Russia or not. To
accommodate the dichotomous structure of this dependent variable, we employ a logit estimator with the required weights.
The key independent variable is derived from the question Would you say that you have been following news of the conict
between Russia and the Republic of Georgia very closely, somewhat closely.? It is labeled Followed the Crisis in the re-
gressions. The response options are not at all closely (coded as 1, n 196), not too closely (coded as 2, n 257), somewhat
closely (coded 3, n 424), and very closely (coded as 4, n 107). Respondents who replied dont know or refused to
answer are coded as missing (n 16). As such, the higher the value for the variable, the more the respondent claims to have
followed the crisis. We expect it to be positively correlated with the dependent variable. The more that one is exposed to the
news that portrayed Russia as the aggressor, the more that she or he is likely to blame Russia for the conict.
We also employ 10 control variables that range from other media behaviors and attitudes, overall attitudes towards Russia,
as well as a number of typical demographic variables. First, the survey asks the respondents a series of 7 questions on their
news media usage in 7 different media venues (for example, Local TV and National Newspapers). The four responses vary
from never (coded as 1) to everyday (coded as 4). The 7 questions are aggregated to form Overall Media Usage. This
variable controls how much the respondent is generally exposed to news.
In addition, we control for the respondents self-reported level of trust and condence in the news media. This is coded
as 1 through 4 with higher values indicating a higher level of trust. Third, we control for respondents who may have a bias
against Russia generally. Respondents are asked if they think that Russia is a close ally.? The four responses range from
unfriendly and an enemy (coded 1, n 148) to close ally (coded 4, n 20). Although the RussiaGeorgian conict may
inuence the respondents choice, the question is worded broadly and specically asks about its relationship to the United
Statesdand the conict, at most, only marginally affected the United States. As such, we are condent that this question
largely taps into the respondents pre-existing opinion of Russia10; the higher the values, the more the respondent believed
that Russia is an ally of the United States.
The remaining 7 variables are typical controls in most studies of political behavior. In concern for space, we will omit many
of the question and response details. All of the questions and responses, though, contain standard wordings. These include
demographic controls, such as the Age of the respondent, whether the respondent is self-identied as being White or not, and
whether the respondent is Male or not. We also control for the respondents self-placement on a ve-point ideological scale
ranging from very liberal (coded as 1, n 115) to very conservative (coded as 5, n 146) and on a ve-point religiosity,
which is measured as how frequently the respondent reports attending religious servicesdranging from never (coded as 1,
n 114) to every week (coded as 5, n 322). Finally, we also code for the respondents education level, which varies from
grade school or less (08) (coded as 1, n 7) to post graduate (more than 4 years) (coded as 6, n 218) as well as the
respondents family income levels, which varies from under $25,000 (coded as 1, n 103) to $100,000 or more (coded as
5, n 209).
Table 7 reports the coefcients from the logit estimations. We estimate ve models. The rst, labeled All Respondents, is
regressed on all respondents for which there is data. Among the 11 variables, only the key independent variable, Followed the
Crisis, is statistically signicant. As expected, it is positively correlated with the probability that the respondent blames Russia
for the crisis. Many Americans probably had little prior knowledge of RussiaGeorgian relations and the ensuing political
turmoil; it is, thus, likely that respondents attitudes towards the crisis have been shaped largely by the domestic news
coverage. As we have shown, this news coveragedat least in the elite outlets that we surveyeddhad typically framed Russia
as the aggressor. As such, we expected in H3 that the more an individual has followed the crisis, the more likely he or she
would blame Russia for the conict. In fact, if all of the other variables are held at their means, respondents who followed the
crisis very closely are 49 percent more likely to blame Russia than respondents who followed the crisis not at all closely.
The absence of statistical signicance for any of the other regressors speaks to the likelihood that respondents probably
had no to little prior formed opinions about Russia and Georgia. Interestingly, opinions on whether Russia is to blame or not
for the crisis also withstand any prior attitudes about whether Russia is an ally or the respondents overall media usage.
To further test this nding, we analyze subgroups from the sample. The survey asked respondents overall, where would
you say that you get most of your news from? The response options include television (n 546), newspapers (n 133), the
radio (n 109), the internet (n 158), family/friends (n 24), combination (n 16), dont know (n 13), and refused to
answer (n 1). This provided the opportunity to examine attitudes about crisis among those who use the main-stream-media
10
The regression results are substantively unchanged if this variable is omitted.
Table 7
Blaming Russia for conict.
All respondents Most news from TV Most news from newspapers Most news from radio Most news from internet
Followed the crisis 0.840*** 0.943*** 1.558*** 1.537*** 0.346
(0.154) (0.188) (0.381) (0.437) (0.336)
Overall media usage 0.083 0.064 0.112 0.643 0.060
(0.160) (0.223) (0.440) (0.437) (0.434)
Trust media 0.021 0.053 0.212** 0.029 0.205**
(0.036) (0.053) (0.097) (0.144) (0.084)
Russia as Ally 0.005 0.193 1.119*** 0.032 0.191
(0.148) (0.199) (0.366) (0.402) (0.437)
Age 0.003 0.002 0.023 0.027 0.038
(0.008) (0.010) (0.024) (0.033) (0.031)
White 0.131 0.213 2.342** 0.763 2.499**
(0.311) (0.407) (0.975) (1.056) (1.184)
Male 0.061 0.401 1.441** 1.717** 0.602
(0.229) (0.341) (0.705) (0.872) (0.599)
Conservative 0.081 0.092 0.376* 0.149 0.059
(0.090) (0.123) (0.212) (0.306) (0.273)
Religiosity 0.033 0.024 0.298 0.239 0.007
(0.077) (0.108) (0.227) (0.243) (0.221)
Education 0.125 0.267* 0.606* 0.546 0.186
(0.104) (0.156) (0.324) (0.392) (0.328)
Family income 0.001 0.084 0.595** 0.271 0.964***
(0.097) (0.122) (0.251) (0.317) (0.253)
Constant 1.786* 1.711 11.39*** 0.242 2.231
(0.962) (1.330) (3.294) (3.161) (2.813)
Observations 635 620 622 621 622
Subgroup observations 358 81 63 107
F statistic 3.55*** 3.31*** 2.67** 1.67* 2.21**
Notes: Untransformed coefcients reported; Standard errors in parentheses.

***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, *p < 0.1.Source: Authors calculations based on UCONN CSRA survey (Sept 15Oct 30, 2008)
(MSM) and those who do not. We assume that those who receive most of their news through the MSM (dened here as
television, newspapers, and the radio) are likely to be exposed to similar framing.11 Although the Internet certainly offers
news from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and others, there is also a much greater diversity of news sources,
including rst-person accounts. As such, we expect that respondents who have followed the crisis more closely and report
that they receive most of their news from one of the three MSM sources are more likely to blame Russia for the crisis. The
remaining four models support our hypothesis. The coefcient estimates for Followed the Crisis variable in the models labeled
Most News from TV, Most News from Newspapers, and Most News from Radio are all statistically signicant and
positively related to the probability that the respondent blamed Russia for the crisis.12 This suggests that the more the re-
spondents followed the crisis and reported that they receive most of their news from one of the three MSM sources, the more
likely that they were to view Russia as the aggressor in the conict. Alternatively, in the model labeled Most News form the
Internet, the key independent variable, Followed the Crisis, is far from statistically signicant.
Although we cannot be sure of why this is, it is plausible that the diversity of news and commentary that is offered across
the internet has disrupted the pattern that has otherwise been consistently founddthat is, Russia was framed as the
aggressor in the RussiaGeorgia conict by the elite American newspapers. As Chong and Druckman (2007, 119) put it
competition makes accessible a more representative sampling of underlying considerations than one-sided communications
and therefore provides a broader frame of reference for locating ones preference on an issue.
5. Cold War mentality, public opinion and USRussia relations
Each time when there is a crisis between Russia and the US, experts warn about the resurgence of a Cold War mentality
that permeates the rhetoric and behavior of foreign policy elites. Despite the fact that the Cold War has been over for more
than two decades, the elites as well as the masses on both sides occasionally fall back on their preconceived notions and
biases and cannot seem to shake away the distrust and suspicion of the other side that characterized the relations throughout
much of the 20th century. In this paper, we set out to explain the role of the media in reviving and transmitting this mentality
by selectively using certain frames over others in the coverage of crises. Through a content analysis of the two leading elite
newspapers, we nd that the US media did indeed provide an anti-Russia framing in the coverage of the war between Russia
11
As discussed earlier, this is referred to as the inter-media agenda setting.
12
The F-Statistic for the Most News from Radio model is statistically signicant, but only at the p < 0.1 level. Even though Followed the Crisis has strong
statistical signicance, we need to be cautious about whether the entire model is distinguishable from the null hypothesis in which all of the coefcients are
zero.
Fig. 1. Source: Gallup (1993, 1994, 2995, 1996, 2997, 1999, 2000, April 2001, March 2003, April 2003, 2006), Harris (October 2001, 2004, 2005) and CBS (2007)
polls. The 2008 data comes from our own poll. Question: For each of the following countries, please say whether you consider it an ally of the United States,
friendly, but not an ally, unfriendly, or an enemy of the United States. How about [RUSSIA]?
and Georgia in 2008. We nd that the framing bias was not driven by opinion pieces or the sources that were used and that it
varied depending on the stage of the conict, meaning that anti-Russia framing decreased over time as the conict moved
toward de-escalation.
Our public opinion survey also provided us with the opportunity to test the agenda-setting role of the media. The
descriptive statistics reveal that US public opinion of Russia became more negative after the 2008 crisis and that those who
more closely followed the news of the conict blamed Russia more than those who rarely followed or did not follow the
conict. Our regression analysis further conrms that the more the respondents followed the crisis, the more likely they were
to view Russia as the aggressor in the conict. Although with varying effects depending on the type of media outlet, the US
media coverage has had an important role in perpetuating the Cold War mentality that Russia is an aggressive power that
should not be trusted.
The role of the media in opinion formation and change does not go unchallenged in the literature. There are those who
argue that the public opinion may not be that easily malleable and that it is in fact stable, and coherent over time (Page and
Shapiro, 1992; Popkin, 1994; Page and Bouton, 2006). Others argue that the stability that had formerly characterized public
opinion corresponded to the existence of a stable international system under the Cold War and that public opinion in the
post-Cold War era has undergone change in light of uncertainty in the new international realm (Entman, 2004). A cursory
look at the public opinion trends in the US since the beginning of 1990s demonstrate in fact that the Cold War mentality of
seeing Russia as unfriendly has not been a constant. As Fig. 1 shows, Americans opinion of Russia has become favorable
during normal times only to become unfavorable after major crises between the two countries. We attribute this pattern of
public opinion around and between crises to the role media plays in ratcheting up the Cold War rhetoric. Having an infor-
mational disadvantage, people rely on shortcuts provided by the media to interpret the events happening on the ground.
Whether or not this negative media framing and the consequent negative public opinion has had any affect on relations
between the two countries is another area where the literature falls short of providing much guidance. There are those who
argue that the media serves as an independent, strategic actor in the policymaking process with an important mission to
inform the public (Patterson, 2000). It is argued that especially in the absence of clear national interests and foreign policy
doctrines in the post cold-war period, the media has had a much critical role in shaping the foreign policy agenda (Entman,
2004). Yet, others claim that the media acts as a conveyer belt and that its reliance on ofcial sources for information on
international events leads to recycling of the prepackaged frames obtained from decision-makers (Cohen, 1963; Brody, 1991;
Malek, 1996; Lehman-Wilzig and Bloch 2002). Similarly, there is no consensus on how public opinion shapes foreign policy.
Many would argue that the effect of public opinion depends on the type of foreign policy decisions to be made, the political
process, media goals at the time and perceived relevance of the public opinion among others (Bloch-Elkon, 2007).
We argue that the events of August 2008 have had some direct impact on the bilateral relationship between US and Russia.
Moscows recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, its continued military presence in the former
Soviet territories as well as the unrelenting American economic and military support to Georgias independence have directly
complicated the relations between these two countries. But perhaps the indirect impact of the war has been much more
profound. The fact that this war took place in the midst of a presidential election campaign in the United States and was
portrayed as a foreign policy litmus test for the candidates made Russia a part of the national political conversation. Although
brief, the war received considerable media attention in the United States.13 During the three presidential debates that fall,
13
According to Pew Research Centers Project for Excellence in Journalism, during the week of August 11 and 17, the war between Russia and Georgia with
26% of overall coverage was the biggest story in the US media, marking the rst week in nine months when the presidential campaign did not generate the
most coverage. War in Georgia is bigger news than the campaign, PEJ Campaign Coverage Index, 1117 August 2008, available at http://www.journalism.org
Russia was probably the foreign policy topic mentioned most often after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (Charap, 2010,
285). Senators John McCain and Barack Obama competed with each other to rebuke Russias actions and offer various
sanctions to punish Russia. Barack Obama, who came close to losing his lead during the crisis, responded initially in a more
measured way, for which he was instantly criticized by many that he is unt to be Commander-in-Chief. In a poll conducted
after the war in Georgia, 55 percent of likely voters named McCain as best qualied to deal with Russia, compared to 27
percent for Obama (Charap, 2010, 286). However, as the crisis escalated, Obamas criticism of Russia sharpened. In his
statement on 11 August, Obama put the blame for the escalation of hostilities squarely on Russia and raised the possibility of
blocking Moscows application to join the World Trade Organization (WTO) as well as hinting at the prospect of a possible
boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics to be held in Sochi, near the Georgian border. Like McCain, Obama has also made it clear
that he considers the crisis a turning point in Russias relations with the West (Zaborowski, 2008).
Such politicization of the foreign policy toward Russia suggests that negative media framing and public opinion can be
used by politicians to justify a hawkish and deant foreign policy rhetoric. Similar trends can most likely be observed in Russia
where theories about Western plots to isolate Russia in the world get reinforced in the media, crystallized in public opinion
against the US and used by elites to ratchet up the Cold War mentality.14 While it is difcult to sort out the exact feedback loop
between the media, public opinion and foreign policy elites, it is not hard to see the central place the media occupies in
constructing a prism through which the public and elites perceive complex information.
It is important, nally, to acknowledge that the resurgence of the Cold War mentality in the USRussia relations appears
more symbolic and ephemeral than instrumental and constant. Since the resetting of relations by the new US administration
in 2009 not long after the August 2008 wardthe dialog and cooperation between the two countries have been improving on
issues such as nonproliferation, Afghanistan, bilateral trade and others. This proves that the Cold War mentality does not lead
to a complete breakdown of relations; there are in fact too many other factors that shape the contours of the interaction
between the two countries. It does, however, have the effect of slowing down negotiations and stalling progress on important
issues. It also provides a short-term political tool for elites to position themselves via their competitors in the domestic realm.
We argue that in this recycling ritual of the Cold War mentality, the media plays a complex, yet signicant role.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Timofei V. Bordachev, Maxim V. Bratersky, Jeffrey Ladewig, Sergei A. Medvedev, Andrei Y.
Melville, Mikhail G. Mironyuk, Natalia Piskunova and Dmitry V. Suslov for valuable comments and input in this paper.
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Communist and Post-Communist Studies Volume 46 issue 4 2013 [doi 10.1016%2Fj.postcomstud.2013.08.003] Bayulgen, Oksan; Arbatli, Ekim -- Cold War redux in US–Russia relations_ The effects of US media f.pdf

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Communist and Post-Communist Studies 46 (2013) 513527

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Communist and Post-Communist Studies

Cold War redux in USRussia relations? The effects of US

1. Media framing and agenda setting

2. Methods and research design

2.1. Content analysis

Neutral Anti-Georgia Anti-Russia Mean coefcient

Percentages are rounded up to the closest integer. Number of articles is in parentheses.

3. Content analysis results and discussion

Ragg Gjust Gvict Gagg Rjust Rvict Sovict

News Opinion pieces Percentage of opinion pieces

Neutral Anti-Georgian Anti-Russian

Neutral Anti-Georgia Anti-Russia Mean coefcient

Russia Georgia Both Neither Dont know Refused

4. Public opinion survey results and discussion

Notes: Untransformed coefcients reported; Standard errors in parentheses.

5. Cold War mentality, public opinion and USRussia relations

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