Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Attack when the World is not Watching?
T2 - U.S. Media and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
AU - Durante, Ruben
AU - Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina
PY - 2018/6/30
Y1 - 2018/6/30
N2 - Politicians may strategically time unpopular measures to coincide with newsworthy events that distract the media and the public. We test this hypothesis in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We find that Israeli attacks are more likely to occur when US news on the following day is dominated by important predictable events. Strategic timing applies to attacks that bear risk of civilian casualties and are not too costly to postpone. Content analysis suggests that Israel’s strategy aims at minimizing next-day coverage, which is especially charged with negative emotional content. Palestinian attacks do not appear to be timed to US news.
AB - Politicians may strategically time unpopular measures to coincide with newsworthy events that distract the media and the public. We test this hypothesis in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We find that Israeli attacks are more likely to occur when US news on the following day is dominated by important predictable events. Strategic timing applies to attacks that bear risk of civilian casualties and are not too costly to postpone. Content analysis suggests that Israel’s strategy aims at minimizing next-day coverage, which is especially charged with negative emotional content. Palestinian attacks do not appear to be timed to US news.
U2 - 10.1086/697202
DO - 10.1086/697202
M3 - Journal article
VL - 126
SP - 1085
EP - 1133
JO - Journal of Political Economy
JF - Journal of Political Economy
SN - 0022-3808
IS - 3
ER -