Increasing evidence of connections between public opinion and U.S. foreign policy-making suggests the importance of determining what influences shape the collective foreign policy preferences of the public. A data set involving repeated measures of public opinion and content analyses of TV news...

American public opinion about foreign policy is neither volatile nor capricious. Contrary to much conventional wisdom, collective opinion has tended to be rather stable. When it has changed, it has done so by responding in rational ways to international and domestic events that have been...

Democratic theory suggests that media should act in the interests of ordinary citizens. If a highly influential segment of the media presents information in a way that systematically favors its interests over other interests, democracy may be weakened. Media organizations, reacting to concern...