Mission Accomplished? Framing of the Iraq War in the Elite Newspapers in Sweden and the United States

TLDR

The study examines how the 2003 Iraq War was framed in Sweden’s Dagens Nyheter and the US’s New York Times. The content analysis found that the New York Times framed the war primarily as a military conflict and relied heavily on official sources, whereas Dagens Nyheter emphasized responsibility and anti‑war protest frames, used more human‑interest stories and self‑references, and adopted a more negative tone.

Abstract

This study investigates the framing of the 2003 Iraq War in the elite newspapers in Sweden and the US, Dagens Nyheter and The New York Times. The content analysis revealed significant differences between the two papers: the military conflict frame was more common for the US war coverage while the responsibility and anti-war protest frames were more common for the Swedish war coverage. Both newspapers offered human interest stories and media self-references. The US newspaper, however, relied more heavily on official government and military sources. In addition, the tone of war coverage differed across the two nations, with Swedish reporting being more negative overall. Implications of the differences in war coverage as well as possible reasons rooted in the national media and political systems are discussed.