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Abstract

The power and influence of news media has grown to become a greatly deliberated and contentious topic in modern times, particularly following the emergence of US President Donald Trump, who both weaponised news media and vilified it by crying “fake news”. Consequently, the honesty and consistency of news outlets and organisations have been called into question worldwide, including in the UK. There was no time where this sentiment resonated with the British public in the pre-Trump era more clearly than the Iraq War, which lasted from 2003 to 2011. This study examined a series of articles from throughout the Iraq War, analysing their language, structure and content to understand the intent of the organisations that published them. Doing so, as well as considering changes to these factors over time, provides the opportunity to establish a potential link between the biases held by news sources and the political preferences of the public that rely on them. This study therefore recontextualises much of the existing body of academic research into the powers and influence of media outlets and contributes to future research on the topic.

Course: Politics - BA (Hons) - C0313

Date Deposited: 2024-01-12

URI/permalink: https://library.port.ac.uk/dissert/dis14281.html