Investigating Press Coverage of Protest Songs During the 2003 Iraq War

Abstract

The 2003 Iraq War was a landmark for real-time news dissemination, with news broadcast by journalists embedded with U.S. troops. The literature indicates that mainstream media reflected the viewpoints of those in power, giving little coverage to anti-war sentiment. This study focuses on press coverage relating to a specific aspect of dissent—protest songs against the 2003 Iraq War. After analyzing the content of articles sourced from mainstream newspapers from both sides of the Atlantic, namely, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, and the Telegraph, the results indicate that from the beginning of this war, anti-war songs were perceived by journalists to be in decline for reasons that were reported to have been linked to the period’s sociopolitical and economic context. The conclusions of the study underscore the value of analyzing news type articles and opinion pieces from newspapers of record.