Video Bites in Media Coverage

Scholars have long recognized the power of images to communicate political messages yet past research has paid scant attention to the communication power of images. Recent scholarship has renewed the call for greater attention to images as important sources of political messages in campaigns (Grabe and Bucy, 2009). While the verbal message of soundbites have been shrinking, image bites have been increasing. Further, in times of war, images elicit powerful emotions from viewers, shaping their personal understandings of the distant unfolding events. Yet, in times of war, elite messages are limited, particular given governmental/press agreements. This paper will investigate the range of images communicated over the first several weeks of the war in Iraq in a variety of news sources (national news, local news, and foreign news) in order to analyze the relationship between visual understandings of the war and the range of public opinion