Contributing writer David Tenenbaum's cover feature cites a Jan. 19 Milwaukee Journal poll showing that 67% of Wisconsinites opposed the war in Iraq, which the U.S. just entered. Eight days later, 67% favored the conflict. "Experts say it's as predictable as sunrise - Americans 'rally 'round the flag' when the shooting starts," he writes. Government efforts to control information - and media compliance toward such restrictions - are among the factors in Tenenbaum's cover story, "The War for Your Mind." Murray Edelman, an emeritus UW-Madison political science professor, says the way news is presented "can create particular realities, particular pictures of what's what, and therefore, they can easily be distorted." Leonard Berkowitz, a UW-Madison psychology professor, adds that group identity and shared emotional experience are heightened during wartime, sometimes with disturbing results.
How war changes minds
From the Isthmus archives, Feb. 15, 1991