Bush's War: Media Bias and Justifications for War in a Terrorist Age (Communication, Media, and Politics)

Immediately after the attacks of September 11, 2001, Americans looked to President Bush for words of leadership. In his most formal reply of the day, he said, 'Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts. The victims were in airplanes, or in their offices; secretaries, businessmen and women, military and federal workers; moms and dads, friends and neighbors. Thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror.' The stark tone of Bush's speech suggested the promise of more words to come from the president, and it is these words that Bush's War addresses. While many books have offered a take on the attacks of 9/11 and their impact upon American society, one area has been comparatively ignored: presidential justifications for war in the age of terrorism. Specifically, what did President Bush say to justify American military actions in the postD9/11 world? And how did the public hear what he said, especially as it was filtered through the news media? The eloquent and thoughtful Bush's War shows how public perception of what the president says is shaped by media bias. Jim A. Kuypers compares Bush's statements with press coverage, arguing that the nature of American public knowledge concerning our role in the world has been changed_not by 9/11, but by the subsequent argumentative back-and-forth between Bush and the press.

History

Jim A. Kuypers

Americas

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Immediately after the attacks of September 11, 2001, Americans looked to President Bush for words of leadership. In his most formal reply of the day, he said, "Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts. The victims were in airplanes, or in their offices; secretaries, businessmen and women, military and federal workers; moms and dads, friends and neighbors. Thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror." The stark tone of Bush's speech suggested the promise of more words to come from the president, and it is these words that Bush's War addresses. While many books have offered a take on the attacks of 9/11 and their impact upon American society, one area has been comparatively ignored: presidential justifications for war in the age of terrorism. Specifically, what did President Bush say to justify American military actions in the post? 9/11 world? And how did the public hear what he said, especially as it was filtered through the news media? The eloquent and thoughtful Bush's War shows how public perception of what the president says is shaped by media bias. Jim A. Kuypers compares Bush's statements with press coverage, arguing that the nature of American public knowledge concerning our role in the world has been changed? not by 9/11, but by the subsequent argumentative back-and-forth between Bush and the press.

Partisan Journalism: A History of Media Bias in the United States (Communication, Media, and Politics)

In Partisan Journalism: A History of Media Bias in the United States Jim A. Kuypers guides readers on a journey through American journalistic history, focusing on the warring notions of objectivity and partisanship. Kuypers shows how the American journalistic tradition grew from partisan roots and, with only a brief period of objectivity in between, has returned to those roots today. The book begins with an overview of newspapers during Colonial times, explaining how those papers openly operated in an expressly partisan way; he then moves through the Jacksonian era’s expansion of both the press and its partisan nature. After detailing the role of the press during the War Between the States, Kuypers demonstrates that it was the telegraph, not professional sentiment, that kicked off the movement toward objective news reporting. The conflict between partisanship and professionalization/objectivity continued through the muckraking years and through World War II, with newspapers in the 1950s often being objective in their reporting even as their editorials leaned to the right. This changed rapidly in the 1960s when newspaper editorials shifted from right to left, and progressive advocacy began to slowly erode objective content. Kuypers follows this trend through the early 1980s, and then turns his attention to demonstrating how new communication technologies have changed the very nature of news writing and delivery. In the final chapters covering the Bush and Obama presidencies, he traces the growth of the progressive and partisan nature of the mainstream news, while at the same time explores the rapid rise of alternative news sources, some partisan, some objective, that are challenging the dominance of the mainstream press. This book steps beyond a simple charge-counter-charge of political bias in the news in that it offers an argument that the press in America, except for a brief period, was essentially partisan from its inception and has returned with a vengeance to its original roots. The final argument presented in the book is that this new development may actually be healthy for American Democracy.

Communication provides the basis of social cohesion, issue discussion, and legislative enactment core features of political activity and governing in the United States. Denton and Kuypers, experts in the field of political communication, synthesize materials and sources from political science, communication, history, journalism, and sociology to demonstrate how communication intersects with these fields to formulate political beliefs, attitudes, and values. Conventional categories of political activity campaigns, activity in Congress, the courts, the mass media, and the presidency structure the discussions. Theoretical and applied concepts drawn from firsthand sources and classic historical works, plus extensive use of contemporary examples, enrich understanding. Written in an engaging, accessible style that is geared to an undergraduate audience, the text ignites readers' awareness that the essence of politics is talk or human interaction. Such interaction is formal and informal, verbal and nonverbal, public and private but always persuasive in nature, causing audiences to interpret, to evaluate, and to act.
 Related titles available by Waveland Press: Stewart et al., Persuasion and Social Movements, Sixth Edition (ISBN 9781577667773) and Woodward-Denton, Persuasion and Influence in American Life, Seventh Edition (ISBN 9781478607892).

Politics and Communication in America: Campaigns, Media, and Governing in the 21st Century

Politics & Social Sciences

Robert E. Denton Jr.

Politics & Government

Waveland PRess

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Books by Jim A. Kuypers

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Jim A. Kuypers. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Bush's War: Media Bias and Justifications for War in a Terrorist Age (Communication, Media, and Politics)

Bush's War: Media Bias and Justifications for War in a Terrorist Age (Communication, Media, and Politics)

Partisan Journalism: A History of Media Bias in the United States (Communication, Media, and Politics)

Politics and Communication in America: Campaigns, Media, and Governing in the 21st Century