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A fourth concern of this case study is the question of how news about Korea on U.S. television and in other major media relates to a set of common and relatively stable values that may be used by the American public as an interpretive filter in comprehending international news. The present study builds on Adams' suggestion that analyses of media messages be integrated into research that anticipates factors relevant to audience decoding of those messages. He identified seven long-term patterns from public opinion polling: belief in universal human decency; faith in communication and negotiation; sympathy for human rights everywhere; opposition to foreign combat; support for a strong defensive shield; favor U.S. economic self-interest; and inclination to favor president's leadership.(7)

Conceptual Approach
Although published in 1963, well before the full impact of global television could be discerned, Cohen's The Press and Foreign Policy8 remains the landmark study of the media-foreign policy relationship. He analyzed the press as observer, participant, and catalyst in relation to the foreign policy process, three roles which are not mutually exclusive, but which do circumscribe the structural relationship of the media and foreign policy. His conceptual approach provides a useful framework for assessing the changes brought by television and also offers an informative contrast with more recent, reality-construction approaches in political communication.

While Cohen's conception of the press included all major mass media, for five practical as well as more substantive reasons, his study was based largely on newspapers. He noted (1) that foreign policy elites were more heavily dependent than the general population on newspapers rather than radio and television for foreign affairs news and comment; (2) that the products of the newspaper press were not so ephemeral as those of radio and television; (3) that newspaper coverage of foreign affairs was more extensive and thorough than radio or television coverage; (4) that most television and radio news was assembled from wire service reports, making it virtually indistinguishable from newspaper news; and (5) that newsgathering and editing processes in radio and television were broadly similar to those in newspapers.