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Purpose: The study analyses the propagandistic manipulations embedded in the U.S.-led war in Iraq in 2003. The aim is to ascertain how America used propaganda in her attempts to shore up support for the war and sway her targets. Methodology: Quantitative and qualitative content analysis was applied to analyse the propagandistic manipulations of the U.S. government during the build-up to the war (the threat of war) and the actual war. Two U.S.-based news magazines, Time and Newsweek, were studied. The period of the study spans from February to April 2003. Findings: the findings showed that Washington applied propaganda to an unusual degree in search of global support for the war. Research question two probed into the extent and degree of Washington’s propaganda printed by the Time and the Newsweek magazines. We uncovered that the Time transmitted a total of 35 propaganda (64.8%); while the Newsweek churned out only 19 representing 35.2% of total coded propaganda techniques. Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The study concluded that in spite of the heavy dose of propaganda America administered on the world, she failed to win the UN and world support for the war. The military operation it led in Iraq was an unpopular one.

The aim of the study was to demonstrate in empirical terms how cultural forces shape media coverage of global events. To buttress this fact, the spotlight was on international media coverage of the war in Iraq. The Iraq War was a defining media event. To underpin cultural influences on the war coverage, the paper reviewed five studies (Ravi, 2005; Dimitrova & Connolly-Ahern, 2007; Kolmer & Semetko, 2009; Barker, 2012, Gou et al., 2015) on the coverage of the war in different countries. Results revealed that the cultural context within which each news source was situated shaped the news representation of the war. The cultural factors that influenced the coverage were beyond the control of journalists and their media organizations, suggesting that culture is an important variable that should be considered when studying news production and coverage. The findings reinforce the widely held view that news production is shaped by competing influences, including cultural values.