Metacoverage of Mediated Wars: How the Press Framed the Role of the News Media and of Military News Management in the Iraq Wars of 1991 and 2003

Metacoverage is understood as a discursive outcome of structural mediatization processes in modern media wars. It is defined as news stories that report on war topics in their connection to the role of news journalism or political public relations. A content analysis of press coverage on the last two Gulf Wars shows that journalists used four frames to describe the role of the news media and of military news management; these frames are called conduit, strategy, personalization, and accountability. Five leading newspapers from Germany, chosen for their detached stance in both international conflicts, displayed a marked increase in metacoverage from the first Iraq war, in 1991, compared with the second, in 2003. Journalists tended to write themselves into the story more often and portrayed the news media involvement in increasingly more active terms. Although the news media were presented as a consequential protagonist (strategy frame), their coverage also endeavored to assist citizens to reach an educated judgment on the relationship of war and media (accountability frame). Consequences for political communication and public diplomacy are discussed.