Which news frames prevail in the coverage of U.S. foreign policy? Robert Entman introduces a “cascading activation” model to explain news framing—“the process of selecting and enhancing some aspects of a perceived reality, and enhancing the salience of an interpretation and evaluation of that reality” (p. 5). According to the cascade model, news frames flow hierarchically, from the White House to Washington elites to the media—although they may also flow directly from the administration to the media—and then to the public. Whereas the “indexing” model holds that news reflects the homogeneity of Washington elites, Entman's model has political communication going both ways: Presidential administrations and Washington elites (congressmen, ex-government officials, lobbyists, academic experts) are guided and constrained by the news (actual or anticipated), just as news organizations tailor the news according to public opinion (actual or anticipated). Because different news frames activate different thoughts and feelings at each stage of the process (p. 9), some frames succeed better than others.

Entman analyzes news frames in the New York Times, Washington Post, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, Time, and Newsweek. He shows how the White House successfully promoted many of its frames during the Cold War (Korean Airlines 007, 1983; Iran Air 655, 1985), but had difficulty with ambiguous interventions (Grenada, 1983; Libya, 1986; Panama, 1989). Although the Bush administration successfully reframed the 1990–91 Iraq war, the end of the Cold War generally led to more independent coverage of foreign policy (Somalia, 1993; Haiti, 1994). The author recognizes, though, that this last finding may be the result of the Clinton presidency, since Republicans are better at projecting their frames than Democrats.

The author is surely right that the media have grown in influence over the last few decades, a phenomenon attributed to the end of the Cold War consensus (p. 5), and he valuably shows the uneven treatment that the media give to presidential administrations, political elites, and public opinion with respect to different foreign policy issues. Not only may the media ignore differences within the Beltway, but the media themselves (instead of elites) may challenge presidential news frames. Moreover, the author's study of how the media framed the nuclear freeze movement, military spending, and foreign aid reveals that news organizations, political elites, and the White House do not necessarily represent public opinion. In fact, it is extremely difficult—perhaps impossible—to disentangle public opinion from the media (pp. 130–43). Communications scholars would do well to supplement models by Robert Erickson, James Stimson, and Michael McKuen (Macropolitics, 2002) and others that attempt to account for policymaking without factoring in the media (pp. 144–45).

Projections of Power contains interesting findings and insights. Its multitiered, interactive analysis constitutes a welcome step forward. Nonetheless, it is hard to know what to make of the cascade model.

One problem is that author tracks news frames as they proceed down (and up) the news hierarchy, but he provides no independent measures of administrations' or elites' news frames. No baseline of elites' thoughts or discussions verifies whether or not elites are, in fact, silent (p. 73), or if journalists are simply deciding not to publicize dissenting views. Too, if governing elites and leading journalists have cozy and cooperative relationships (p. 2), then media frames might coincide or even precede White House frames. We also know that elites may want to stay off the record or use back-channel connections. Since there is no measure of elites' or presidential frames apart from what the media publicize, however, the indexing model is not disproved.

Another issue is the omission of alternative explanations. The author attributes Republicans' success in promoting new frames to their greater political skill (pp. 21, 95–96, 106, 114, 121, 152–53), but he does not discuss the GOP's “issue ownership” of foreign policy since 1980, possibly since 1968. But we might expect elites' and news organizations' treatments of the Reagan, Clinton, and Bush administrations to reflect this partisan advantage.

Or Republican success could be the result of the rise of media conglomerates (e.g., Viacom [CBS], Disney [ABC], General Electric [NBC], News Corporation [Fox], Time-Warner). Even The Washington Post Company owns other newspapers besides the Post, Newsweek, TV stations, and a cable company, while The New York Times Company owns the Boston Globe, International Herald Tribune, 16 other newspapers, and eight TV stations. But if journalists are strongly career oriented (pp. 13, 15, 18, 73, 154), and if media executives share Republicans' positions on taxes, antitrust, labor, welfare policy, and defense spending, then savvy journalists will reflect their bosses' priorities. The Republicans' advantage at projecting their news frames may be less a matter of skill and more because of the magnitude and repetition the media bestow on Republican news frames. Disney's initial decision not to distribute Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 so as not to jeopardize valued tax breaks is on point.

Entman notes, too, the media's use of culturally resonant frames (pp. 14–17, 147–48, 154–55). Yet the core American values—individualism, democracy, liberty, and equality—are themselves in tension. As Paul Frymer shows elsewhere, the equality frame (“script,” for Entman) resonates more than do “limited government” and “individualism” frames (Frymer, Uneasy Alliances, 2002). Cultural resonance is what journalists make of it. And some stories become part of popular culture no matter their dissonance (e.g., Monica Lewinsky, Abu Ghraib).

A third problem is that an examination of the text's cases casts doubt on news frames as the most appropriate way to understand political communication. The author assumes the underlying facts to be identical (p. 27), hence, the importance of (substantive) frames to define problems, specify causes, endorse remedies, and make moral judgments (pp. 23–24). But if frames are malleable and vulnerable to counterframes, then different facts could lead to different frames. Fact control becomes all-important, and presidential administrations work hard at managing information. Governments are in a position to determine the “official” facts and, thereby, effectively define political reality (Mark Fishman, Manufacturing the News, 1980). The text does not tell us what determines when the White House is able to define the problem and when it cannot. The facts, though, cannot be assumed.

The author accepts the conventional wisdom. In the media's version of 9/11, the cause was “ideology, envy of U.S.” according to the dominant frame (pp. 24–25). The author omits the actual reason for al-Qaeda's terrorism: bringing down the Saudi regime. The remedy for the prevailing (false) news frame is war, though, whereas the remedy for the actual cause might be war (U.S. defense of Saudi Arabia) or reconsideration of U.S. Middle East policy. Nowhere is this discussed. The author also writes of the USSR's cold-blooded downing of Korea's KAL 007, although research points to the plane's being shot after an aerial battle between the U.S. and Soviet air forces (Michel Brun, Incident at Sakhalin, 1995; John Keppel, “Korean Airlines Flight 007,” paper presented at Harvard University, April 1992; David E. Pearson, KAL 007, 1987).

Similarly, the author writes that President Carter's failure to free the Iranian hostages cost him reelection in 1980 (p. 137), but he does not discuss William Casey's and former CIA Director (and vice presidential candidate) George Bush's efforts to delay the hostages' release; their release before the November election would have been the “October Surprise” (Barbara Honneger, October Surprise, 1992; Robert Parry, Trick or Treason, 1995; Gary Sick, October Surprise, 1991). Neither does Entman's account of the 1990–91 Iraq war discuss the planted “incubator babies” story, the untruth that hundreds of thousands of Iraqi troops were massed on the Saudi border, or the inaccuracy of the “smart” bombs. Yet such misinformation was crucial to the war's success. In short, the text's case histories ignore the discrepancy between the conventional wisdom and known facts. Because such discrepancies have such impact on foreign policy, the author does not establish that communications scholars should focus on news frames.

Other observations: Entman observes that criticism often appears on newspapers' editorial pages, while the news proper often uncritically transmits the White House's news frames (pp. 78–84). He recommends the creation of “liaison editors” to overcome this disjuncture (p. 165). But why does he think that managing editors, executive editors, and publishers are unaware of this disjuncture? The inconsistency between the news and editorial pages (Grenada, Panama), as that between procedural and substantive criticism (1990–91 Iraq war), are managerial choices.

If measured and perceived public opinion allow for the legitimation and viability of political action (pp. 162–64), then research needs to examine polling itself (per the premise of the title, Projections of Power). What gets asked? When? When and where are results disseminated? How is information presented? Who sponsors the polling? Survey results on the likely war with Iraq following 9/11 were not released until the autumn of 2002, for example. Why? How were questions phrased? Who sponsored the polls? To what effect?

Last, the author refers to the Cold War consensus (pp. 95, 120, 147). But there was always disagreement on how far to take anticommunism, thus the dissensus over Korea, Eisenhower's “rollback” program, the use of nuclear weapons and neutron bombs, levels of defense spending, and other issues. And despite the end of the Cold War, common cultural referents remain. Only they are from World War II: “Hitler,” “genocide,” “Munich,” “appeasement,” and so forth.