ABSTRACT
A comparative research design is employed to investigate the relationship between elite and media discourse and public opinion over the course of the Iraq war. Keeping all other conditions unchanged, my theoretical model predicts that the strength, volume, and nature of the frames offered to the public as well as their interaction with individual predispositions determines people’s perceptions of a given issue. In turn, when public attitudes towards the government’s handling of the problem are formed, opposition from the public can stimulate a shift in the government’s communication strategy if the issue is relevant enough. In this research scheme, all actors participating in the cycle of framing are linked to one another and contribute to the representation(s) of the event. Therefore, the identifi cation of the sources and the correct operationalisation of the variables for measuring public opinion and elite and media framing are essential to understand both the direction and intensity of the fl ows of infl uence that spread through the cycle of framing at different levels and points in time.
