American Research Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

Existing literature extensively debates the CNN effect and the role of the media in prompting U.S. foreign policy; however, no prior research has investigated how political orientation influenced the framing of RH at the local news level, leaving a significant gap in the political communication literature. This study addresses that gap by employing a quantitative conceptual content analysis of 50 newspaper articles drawn randomly from local news outlets all across the United States. Articles were coded using a codebook along two dimensions: outlet political affiliation (left, center, or right-leaning) and portrayal of the U.S. military (positive, factual reporting, or negative). A chi-square goodness-of-fit test was performed and returned no statistically significant relationship between political affiliation and military portrayal, χ² (8) = 13.00, p = .112. Descriptive statistics, however, suggest that pro-military framing nevertheless dominated coding across all ideological categories. These findings are in line with other studies that suggest that institutional factors, including military media pooling, exert greater influence over local reporting rather than political orientation. This complicates the shared understanding of ideological bias in foreign policy journalism, providing a baseline for future comparative research on conflict coverage in other time periods or geographical areas.