ImpactWatch Blog

Television news coverage of the war in Iraq may have an effect on the amount of attacks by insurgents in that area, according to a recent study by researchers at Harvard.  They claim that there is a measurable “emboldenment effect” when doubts are publicly voiced about the US occupation of Iraq by politicians and other on-air personalities.  The abstract of the research paper states:

“Using data on attacks and variation in access to international news across Iraqi provinces, we identify an ‘emboldenment’ effect by comparing the rate of insurgent attacks in areas with higher and lower access to information about U.S news after public statements critical of the war. We find in periods after a spike in war-critical statements, insurgent attacks increases by 5-10 percent. The results suggest that insurgent groups respond rationally to expected probability of US withdrawal. As such counterinsurgency should consider deterrence and incapacitation rather than simply search and destroy missions.”

Basically, the researchers tracked what they deemed “anti-resolve statements” up to November, as well as reports of insurgent attacks.  They found that when there was a peak of anti-resolve statements on the air, that there was also an increase in the level of insurgent attacks.  Apparently, US news coverage is a more noteworthy part of the war than we once realized.

Erica Chenoweth, a postdoctoral research fellow studying terrorism and insurgency at the Belfer Center and a specialist in the statistical analysis of violent events in an interview with United Press International, claimed that it was a “good” study, but that she wanted it to be “more robust.”  To further the study, she suggests investigating “pro-resolve statements” as well, to control for the possibility that insurgent violent was provoked by frustration at US declarations to stay in Iraq.

For those still skeptical of the findings, researchers also claim to have found a greater amount of insurgent attacks in areas such as the Anbar province, where more households have satellite TV.  International news items are most likely watched in greater numbers in those areas.

These findings lead to some questions: If any information about the attitudes of the war can lead to a measurable (and violent) cost, should less be said about the war in public settings?  Should politicians lessen how often they discuss anti-resolve issues?  Should there be some form of censorship?

I personally hope that more is done to…well, embolden the study.  Findings like this should show people that everyone in the world is watching our attitude toward Iraq, and that perhaps we need to be more aware of the consequences when discussing such sensitive issues.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 at 12:37 pm and is filed under Blogs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.