Uplifting manhood to wonderful heights? News coverage of the human costs of military conflict from world war I to Gulf war Two

摘要

Domestic political support is an important factor constraining the use of American military power aroundudthe world. Although the dynamics of war support are thought to reflect a cost-benefit calculus, with costsudrepresented by numbers of friendly war deaths, no previous study has examined how information aboutudfriendly, enemy, and civilian casualties is routinely presented to domestic audiences. This paper establishesuda baseline measure of historical casualty reporting by examining New York Times coverage of five majorudwars that occurred over the past century. Despite important between-war differences in the scale ofudcasualties, the use of conscription, the type of warfare, and the use of censorship, the frequency of casualtyudreporting and the framing of casualty reports has remained fairly consistent over the past 100 years.udCasualties are rarely mentioned in American war coverage. When casualties are reported, it is often in waysudthat minimize or downplay the human costs of war.