Crossing the Water's Edge: Elite Rhetoric, Media Coverage, and the Rally-Round-the-Flag Phenomenon
2008/10/01 by Tim Groeling, Matthew Baum · 1 voice · 253 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · Social Sciences · #Communication source #Credibility #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Elite #Epistemology #Government (linguistics) #Law #Media Influence and Politics #Newspaper #Phenomenon #Political Influence and Corporate Strategies #Political economy #Political science #Politics #Presidential system #Public opinion #Rhetoric #Sociology #Telecommunications
paper · doi:10.1017/s0022381608081061
published in The Journal of Politics 70(4), 1065-1085 (University of Chicago Press)
openalex publication_date 2008/10/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/15
Abstract
The most widely accepted explanation for the rally-round-the-flag phenomenon is a relative absence of elite criticism during the initial stages of foreign crises. In this study we argue that the nature and extent of elite debate may matter less than media coverage of any such debate and that these often systematically diverge. We also argue that not all messages in this debate matter equally for public opinion. Rather, the persuasiveness of elite messages depends on their credibility, which, in turn, arises out of an interaction between the sender, receiver, and message. Hence, only by understanding the interactions between elites, the public, and the press can we account for variations in public responses to presidential foreign policy initiatives. We test our theory by examining public opinion data and a new dataset on network news coverage of all major U.S. uses of military force from 1979 to 2003. We content analyze all congressional evaluations of the president and the executive branch of government from the three network evening newscasts within 61-day time periods centered on the start date of each use of force. Our results offer strong support for the theory.
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