|
Por Mónica Peña
Número 32
Introduction
There
is a great debate about the relationship between the news media
and the foreign policy decision-making process, and the impact the
former may have on the latter. Two theories have risen to explain
this matter, the so-called "CNN effect" and the "manufacturing
consent" thesis.
But
these theories are in conflict, thus, agreement about the direct
impact of the media on foreign policy is yet to be achieved. Even
though for "many journalists, policy-makers and scholars, there
really is little doubt that media profoundly affect the foreign
policy process" (Livingston, 1997), recent research about the
effects of the media on Western Governments in response to humanitarian
interventions "fails to clarify whether or not the news media
has (or has not) triggered recent 'humanitarian' interventions"
(Robinson, 1999).
This essay will start by analysing foreign coverage and foreign
policy making. The reason for this is that foreign events are dealt
by the media through coverage and by foreign policy makers through
the creation, modification and implementation of policies. Further
on, the findings1 of several authors,
like Livingston (1997), Livingston and Eachus (1995), Jacobsen (1996
and 2000), Gowing (1994) and Mermin (1997) will be reviewed in order
to set a grounding for the perceived conclusions about the impact
of the news media on the foreign policy decision-making process.
Media-Foreign policy decision-making relationship
In
order to illustrate how the news media have revolutionized the foreign
policy making process, the image of the Soviet missile crisis in
Bay of Pigs, during John F. Kennedy's government is often mentioned
(Hoge, 1994; Livingston, 1997). During the first six days of the
crisis, Kennedy and his advisers had the chance to deliberate in
secrecy about which course of action they were to take. The capability
of keeping the situation in secret kept foreign policy makers from
dealing with "public hysteria" (Livingston, 1997) or media
pressures.
Nonetheless,
the context has changed considerably since 1962. Firstly, due to
technological developments, real time news coverage allows information
to be broadcasted 24 hours a day from anywhere in the world, with
no regards for diplomatic secrecy. Secondly, since the end of the
Cold War, the world is no longer bipolar, leading towards a lack
of definition of American national interests, for they are no longer
constructed around the idea of stopping the spread of communism.
The latter leads towards the third point: there is policy uncertainty
about foreign affairs. These contextual changes have redefined,
it is argued, the relationship between the news media and the foreign
policy decision-making process in the West, though there is great
debate about its reaches and limitations.
On
the one hand is the so-called "CNN effect", which is understood
in a variety of ways. It comes from being understood as the capability
of the news media (television in particular) to "shape the
policy agenda" (Gowing, 1994); the "power" of news
journalism "to move governments" (Cohen, 1994); "the
idea that real-time communications technology could provoke major
responses from domestic audiences and political elites to global
events" (Robinson, 1999); the argument that "the media
drives Western conflict management by forcing Western governments
to intervene militarily in humanitarian crises against their will"
(Jacobsen, 2000); "elite decision makers' loss of policy control
to news media" (Livingston and Eachus, 1995); to the argument
that the term "CNN effect" has been used imprecisely,
for there are several types of media effects, deriving from different
types of policies (Livingston, 1997).
On
the other hand, the manufacturing consent theory "argues that
the media does not create policy, but rather that news media is
mobilized (manipulated even) into supporting government policy"
(Robinson, 1999). There are two ways in which manufacturing consent
may take place: the executive version, in which there is framing
that conforms to the official agenda; and the elite version, in
which news coverage is critical of executive policy as a consequence
of elite dissensus (ibid.).
Media,
Foreign Policy and Events
However, in my opinion, the first question to be asked regarding
the impact of the media on foreign policy making decisions concerns
how each of these actors, the media and policy makers, relate to
foreign events.
Coverage
The media relate to events through coverage (or lack of coverage
one may add). However, when it comes to foreign news, there are
mixed trends. On the one hand, there is a tendency towards cutting
back the amount of it as a response to little public interest (Hoge,
1994: 143). But on the other, some media are "expanding their
foreign coverage" (idem.). Either way, the attention that media
gives to foreign news seems to be focused to "the unusual and
the violent" (ibid.). "Film footage of violence is the
element of foreign news most likely to leap the hurdles barring
entry to the evening news shows' 22 precious minutes of airtime"
(Hoge, 1993: 3). Bias against peaceful news is noted.
Jacobsen
(2000) divides conflicts in three phases: pre-violence, violence
and post-violence. His findings are that during the pre and post-violence
coverage is negligible; "Since coverage of conflicts that might
explode in violence is unlikely to boost ratings, these conflicts
are usually ignored" (ibid: 133). In the post-violence phase
coverage is also minimal, as an example of this, Jacobsen notes
"Mine clearing is only news if Princess Diana is doing it"
(idem.: 138). The coverage during the post-violence phase, however,
tends towards the negative; failed projects, corruption, mismanagement,
etc. (ibidem). The broad of coverage of a conflict, hence, happens
during the violent phase, however, it is decided by "a host
of different factors, most of which have nothing to do with humanitarian
need such as: geographic proximity to Western countries, costs,
logistics, legal impediments (e.g. visa requirements), risk to journalists,
relevance to national interest, and news attention cycles"
(Jacobsen, 2000: 133).
Thus,
foreign news may be concluded, are subject to coverage in relation
to its level of violence and general newsmaking and newsworthiness
concerns. Girardet (1996) notes that there is a multiplicity of
violent conflicts that have not received coverage at all. Conflicts
are covered also in relation to their international implications,
"It is doubtful that the media would have reported on Rwandans
had it "just" been a case of Rwandans killing Rwandans"
(ibid: 57). He explains the lack of coverage of violent conflicts
comes from the need of the international community to justify concerns
"by reacting to something more morally abhorrent than the mundane
killing of ordinary human beings -just as Afghans killing Afghans,
Sudanese killing Sudanese, or Angolans killing Angolans is apparently
insufficient to mobilize more consistent coverage." (ibidem.:
58).
Girardet
(1996) also points out that there is an obsession with the medium,
rather than the purpose. The "technological conveniences"
that news ICT's bring constitute a threat to quality journalism,
since "All too often, information is confused with understanding,
and high technology with journalism, so fascinated are the people
by the vehicle rather than the purpose". The consequence is
an obsession with immediacy, which shortens the journalist's "time
to fully research and understand the issues at hand", encouraging
"laziness and an overreliance on existent data" (ibid:
59-60).
Gowing
(1994) believes that "There is far more real-time war than
ever before" (81). Whatever is transmitted is determined by
its graphic potential, "the main principle is: no pictures,
then no serious coverage of a conflict" (idem.).
So
far it is understood that foreign news is focused on conflicts;
yet, only a few conflicts are covered, and such coverage is determined
by a variety of factors independent to their level of humanitarian
concerns, such as routine newsmaking and newsworthiness considerations;
the quality of the coverage, just as well, is influenced by the
use of technologies at hand. However, what drives the attention
of journalists in the first place towards a specific conflict? Hoge
(1993: 2) believes that "the new media's task has been made
more difficult by an absence of clear, steady cues from Washington
(
) the press traditionally has covered international affairs
from the perspective of America's perceived interests". As
Mermin (1997) notes, "American journalists turn to politicians
and government officials for guidance in deciding what constitutes
news". Furthermore, Washington constitutes a place "where
newsworthy information is made public everyday" (ibid.). The
same point is made by Livingston and Eachus (1995: 415) when they
say that reporters "have been found to routinely turn to officials
as news sources (Gans, 1979; Paletz & Entman, 1981; Said, 1981;
Sigal, 1973), particularly in foreign affairs and national security
reporting (Entman, 1991; Hallin, 1989; Livingston, 1994)."
Mermin's
research entitled "Television news and American intervention
in Somalia" reveals that Washington's decisions were the key
to the subsequent coverage of the events, which fluctuated in amount
and importance in relation to what was going on in Washington. Just
as well, he notes that coverage was also drawn in relation to the
priority Somalia played in the American agenda, as an example, he
points out that during July of 1992, Somalia was never in the top
of the news because it was not in the top of the foreign policy
agenda (1997: 395).
In
short, the coverage of a foreign conflict is determined by a variety
of factors sometimes tangential to the event itself. However, the
quality of the coverage, and by this we mean the way reports are
fashioned, is also subject of external determinants. News reports
about humanitarian crises are claimed to move governments towards
action as the CNN effect presumes, or to frame contents in conformity
to executive or elitist interests, as suggested by the manufacturing
consent theory. This will be returned to later in this essay.
Foreign policy making process
Foreign policy in Western democracies, as is the case of the United
States, is drawn upon the idea of a predetermined national interest.
With the end of the Cold-War the main concern of USA's national
interest, stopping the spread of communism, was over, yet the challenge
is now that of a new definition of national interests. As Hoge (1993:
2) describes, "there is not yet an articulated official framework
for U.S. foreign policy in a still new post-Cold War world".
The Cold War, Hoge (1994: 137) argues, provided a "gauge for
determining the importance of events by how much they affected America's
security versus its superpower rival". In other words, the
Cold War provided Americans with a defined ideological stigmata,
and this was revealed in the media: "The parameters of press
coverage tended to be those of the country's foreign policy (
)
The press was often critical, but of the execution of policy more
than the aims." (Hoge, 1994: 137).
Joseph
Nye (1999: 22) describes that the collapse of the Soviet Union challenges
the way America conceives its national interests, since ""national
interest" is a slippery concept, used to describe as well as
prescribe foreign policy". Samuel P. Huntington argues that
"without a sure sense of national identity, Americans have
become unable to define their national interests, and as a result
subnational commercial interests and transnational and nonnational
ethnic interests have come to dominate foreign policy" (quoted
in Nye, 1999: 22)2 .
Nye
describes national interests in a democracy as follows: "national
interest is simply the shared priorities regarding relations with
the rest of the world" (1999: 23). Nye (1999) argues that policy
making is more difficult today because of power complexities; he
conceives power as a three-dimensional chessboard: the first dimension
is the military and it is unipolar, with the USA on top of the world;
the second dimension is the economic, which is multipolar, with
the USA, Europe and Japan having the biggest shares; the third dimension
is that of transnational relations, with a dispersed structure of
power. In conclusion, the USA "is preponderant, but not a dominant
power" (Nye, 1999: 24). Therefore, the world did not exactly
become unipolar after the Cold War, hence, national interests and
foreign policies ought to take other variables into account, like
the level of risk U.S. national security faces. Nye establishes
three categories in the hierarchy of risks to U.S. national security.
The "A" list constituted by threats to American survival
(like the one the Soviet Union represented); the "B" list,
constituted by imminent threats to U.S. interests (but not to its
survival), and the "C" list, formed by "contingencies
that indirectly affect U.S. security but do not directly threaten
U.S. interests", like Kosovo, Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda and Haiti
(Nye, 1999: 26).
Nowadays,
Nye (1999) argues, the "C" list predominates in the foreign
policy agenda, one explanation of this comes from the disappearance
of the threat of the Soviet Union as an "A" list, but
another one is that the "C" list is the main concern of
media foreign coverage. However, he argues, "A human rights
policy is not itself a foreign policy, it is an important part of
a foreign policy (
) In the information age, humanitarian concerns
dominate attention to a greater degree that before at the cost of
diverting attention from "A" list strategic issues"
(1999: 31).
However,
as many researchers argue, this intrusion of the "C" list
in foreign policy priorities product of media coverage, which is
one way to describe the CNN effect, is a consequence of the lack
of policy clarity (Gowing, 1994; Freedman, 2000; Hoge, 1994; Robinson,
2001). Just as policy clarity is perceived as necessary in determining
the way media and foreign policy makers would react to a certain
international contingence, political leadership is seen as paramount
(Hoge, 1994, 144; Livingston, 1997: 1; Gjelten, 2002, Kohut and
Toth, 1994: 58)).
In
short, in the USA, foreign policies are drawn around a set of priorities
determined in relation to the degree of importance of the perceived
national interests, which are also determined by levels of risk
to national security. In the post-Cold War world, however, those
interests are not clearly defined, in consequence, policies are
difficult to determine. The media is believed to raise importance
of tangential matters over more substantial concerns in cases of
policy uncertainty, as well as lack of political leadership. Power
concentration varies according to the dimension of concern, yet
one dimension has repercussions on the other. When it comes to policy-making,
those involved in the process posses a different level of power,
and to create a policy they must be subjected to a bargaining interaction
"between a set of subsystems in the government" (Robinson,
2001: 534).
The
relevance of the relationship between the news media and foreign
policy makers goes beyond the fact that the former cover foreign
events, and the latter make policies regarding foreign events. The
importance of this relationship, thus, relies on two claims about
it: firstly, the claims that the coverage of certain events has
the potential to drive the policies that foreign policy makers conduct
regarding the events covered (the CNN effect), secondly, the claim
that foreign policy makers are the ones who drive media attention
towards certain foreign events, and even determine the way those
events are being framed (Manufacturing consent).
Media-Foreign
Policy Making, CNN or Washington?
When
trying to understand the relationship between the media and foreign
policy decision-making, both theories, the CNN effect and the manufacturing
consent come into contest. In this part of the essay, the conclusions
that different researchers have reached regarding this topic will
be reviewed, in order to present a wide scope of the dimensions
of their findings.
Jacobsen
(2000), as previously mentioned, studied the impact of media coverage
on foreign conflict management in relation to the phases of violence
of the conflict. He concludes that the direct impact of the media
on foreign policy making is negligible in the pre and post-violence
phases, and limited during the violence phase3.
He notes that the CNN effect is necessary for interventions, but
insufficient to cause them, for they are decided by other factors:
action perceived as quick, with low risk of casualties and a clear
exit strategy. The "direct impact of the media on Western conflict
management is negligible because coverage is limited to a small
number of conflicts in the violence phase". The consequent
shifting of funds from "cost-effective, long-term measures
to short-term relief efforts leading to a high ineffective allocation
of resources" is the "invisible and indirect" impact
that the media actually have on Western conflict management. This
impact, he argues, "exceeds the direct impact generated by
the CNN effect by far since the latter only affects a very small
number of conflicts" (Jacobsen, 2000).
On
the other hand, Livingston (1997)4
suggests a three-way typology of likely CNN effects. These are conditional
on the kind of intervention that is being conducted, of which he
recognizes eight types. The three CNN effects are described as follows:
First
effect is media as accelerants, in this modality, media are presumed
to shorten the time of decision-making response. Yet, the media
can also become a "force multiplier", a "method of
sending signals" to the opponent (1997: 2-4). This effect is
most plausible to appear in conventional warfare, strategic deterrence,
and tactical deterrence (ibid, 11).
Second
effect is media as impediment, this takes two forms, as an emotional
inhibitor, and as a threat to operational security. One likely manifestation
of the emotional inhibitor effect is the "Vietnam syndrome"
(Livingston, 1997: 4), in which, it is presumed, public support
is undermined by the media coverage of casualties. As a threat to
operational security, the media are said to compromise the success
of an operation by broadcasting it and, thus, revealing strategic
information to the enemy, frustrating the success of the operation.
This kind of effect, Livingston notes, is likely to appear during
conventional warfare, tactical deterrence, SOLIC, peace making and
peace keeping operations.
The
third likely effect of the media on foreign policy making that Livingston
(1997) mentions is that of the media as an agenda setting agent.
It is presumed that the coverage of humanitarian crises puts the
issue in the foreign policy agenda and drives intervention.
Livingston's
typology of likely CNN effects is supported by the findings of other
authors, however, the true existence of such effects still remains
undetermined, though Livingston (1997) scepticism is more focused
towards questioning the ability of the media to set the agenda.
Hoge
(1994: 137) describes the quality of media as accelerants as a pressure
for politicians to "respond promptly to news accounts".
However, Hoge foresees a negative effect of media as accelerants,
due to the fact that news accounts "by their very immediacy
are incomplete, without context and sometimes wrong" (ibid.).
In the case of Somalia, Mermin (1997: 399) believes that media stories
may have accelerated the movement in Washington towards intervention,
yet those stories were "clearly a product of that movement"5.
The
"Vietnam Syndrome", denominated "bodybag effect"
by Freedman (2000) is an important consideration for intervention,
even without the media; as Jacobsen (1996) describes, one of the
requirements for intervention is a low risk of casualties. Therefore,
it can be concluded that is the fact of the casualties, not the
broadcasting of them that has an effect on policy (Luttwak, 1994;
Hoge, 1994), since casualties are "unacceptable if suffered
for no purpose" (Freedman, 2000)6.
When
it comes to operational security, from a military point of view,
Maj. Lafferty, et. al. (1994) finds that during a conflict,
media reports increase enemy effectiveness, but only to a certain
climatic point, after this, the effectiveness will start decreasing
as an outcome of information overload; "Therefore, the U.S.
Military must recast its relationship with media and pursue a strategy
of information overload to decrease enemy effectiveness" (ibid.).
The
ability of the media to function as an agenda setter is the most
questioned by Livingston (1997) since the so-called CNN effect has
been overestimated. "The majority of humanitarian operations
are conducted without media attention (
) Furthermore, the
eventual media coverage itself was the consequence of official
actions." (Livingston, 1997: 7) In the case of Somalia, Livingston
(1997), Livingston and Eachus (1995) and Mermin (1997) conclude
that the media were used by powerful elites to put pressure over
other officials, and that coverage followed policy makers' actions.
However,
Gowing (1994) by interviewing diplomatic and policy insiders finds
that they often felt pressured and influenced by media coverage
in their performance of foreign policy making. This fact reveals
that the relationship between policy makers and the media is not
a "one-way" one, rather it is one of reciprocal influence.
Despite the influence of media over policy makers, Gowing (1994;
83) notes that media reports "shape the policy agenda, but
do not dictate responses. They highlight policy dilemmas, but do
not resolve them." In other words, the prerogatives on policy
making belong to policy makers, media does not decide for them.
Gowing (1994: 84, 85) concludes that in the future real-time television
coverage will make no difference to policy making, the most likely
situation is that a minor action would be taken just to show that
"something" is being done; ultimately, events are what
are important to policy makers, not the coverage of them (ibid.).
The likely changes on policy strategy product of television coverage
would be tactical, but not on the overall strategy (ibid.: 89).
One
final consideration to review in this part of the essay corresponds
to the circumstances under which Western governments are more likely
to intervene during humanitarian crises. Jacobsen (1996) finds five
conditions for intervention: first, a clear case of humanitarian
need where the UN would give its authorization 7;
second, domestic support to the operation8;
third, CNN effect, which is recognized as necessary but not sufficient
to cause an intervention; fourth, linkage to national interests;
and fifth, feasibility of success, which also includes a low risk
of casualties (the greater the domestic support, the more casualties
they are willing to take).
Livingston
(1997: 9) suggests that when looking more closely to "post-Cold
War U.S. "humanitarian" interventions, one is likely to
find equally compelling geostrategic reasons for the intervention.",
like it happened during the Kurdish refugee crisis in 1991, where
Scowcroft notes that it was the sensibility towards Turkey's anxiety
about allowing the Kurds to stay" what fundamentally motivated
the action (quoted in Livingston, 1997: 10). Apart from geostrategic
concerns, Livingston mentions that a series of strict conditions
must be met before the deployment of force, regulated by the Presidential
Decision Directive 25 (PDD25), these include "a clear statement
of American interests at stake in the operation, the approval of
Congress, the availability of funding for the operation, a fixed
date of withdrawal of U.S. forces, and an agreed upon command and
control structure" (Livingston, 1997: 10).
In
short, what researchers have found the CNN effect to be is the ability
of the media to function as accelerants, impediments or agenda-setters.
However, the reaches of each of these effects have counterarguments
and the implications of these effects, by this we mean how positive
or negative they are for foreign policy making, are not yet defined.
Just as well, the ability of the media to impact foreign policy
is inextricably related to coverage, thus, the greater the coverage,
the more direct the impact, however, the indirect impact of the
media is also relevant for foreign strategy, since it could deviate
efforts from the long-term, cost-effective, high priority concerns
towards the short-term, cost-ineffective, low priority contingencies.
Finally, humanitarian intervention is decided by a multiplicity
of factors, out of which the CNN effect may be but one.
Conclusions
As a not clearly defined phenomenon, the so-called CNN effect appears
like a rather simplistic cause and effect explanation of media-foreign
policy decision making relationship; almost like a hypodermic needle
theory taken to the sphere of policy making. On the other hand,
the manufacturing consent theory implies some obscurity, even conspiracy
behind the relationship between policy makers and the media. Not
only does this imply that both media and audiences are passive entities,
easy to manipulate, but also ignorant of the "reality"
behind the framing and indexing of the coverage, since critical
coverage is conceived only in cases of elite dissensus. Both these
theories are in clear confrontation, and they invalidate each other.
But as Robinson (2001) notes, the debate about effect vs. non-effect
in unconstructive. Rather, new approaches towards understanding
more clearly the relationship between media and foreign policy making
are to be achieved.
Just
as news media coverage is not limited to foreign events, foreign
policy making is not limited to the foreign events covered by the
media. Thus, it is not likely that the media could drive overall
foreign policy for the mere fact that coverage is limited to a selected
subset of events. However, it is likely that the media have the
potential to lead towards the modification of the policies being
conducted regarding the events covered. One way to explain this
likely effect of the media on foreign policy is understanding it
as a cycle of dialectic influence in which media reacts to policies
and policy makers react to coverage in a continuum. In the long
run, however, there is the possibility that dramatic changes would
occur; yet the empirical evidence so far is that the policy makers'
reaction to coverage of humanitarian crises is usually that of emergency
relief. The perceived impact of the media is inextricably related
to policy certainty, the greater the certainty the lesser the impact
of the media. This points out other indirect effects of the media,
such as those detailed by Jacobsen (2000) and Nye (1999).
The
main conclusion of this essay is that news media and foreign policy
making process influence one another, sometimes directly, others
indirectly. The degrees of their mutual influence are proportional
to other circumstances, such as newsworthiness from the media point
of view, and policy uncertainty, from the foreign policy making
perspective. However, the research reviewed is made from a Western
point of view, and it is focused on cases of humanitarian intervention,
hence it is insufficient to draw general conclusions about the impact
of the media on foreign policy making as a whole. Furthermore, the
conclusions achieved may not be accurate in the context of non-Western
and/or non First World countries. As hinted before, new research
is needed that would consider cases different to humanitarian intervention,
and contexts outside Western countries in order to draw more accurate
conclusions about the impact the news media and foreign policy making
have (or may not have) in one another.
Post
script
This
essay was written in April 2002. Nowadays, the international agenda
has been transformed because of the outburst of war in Iraq. Therefore,
some of the situations presented in this essay have been modified.
For a start, as suggested in the text, the end of the Cold War left
the US without a clear definition of its national interests. After
September 11th a new enemy emerged, as a result, so did a new international
agenda: the war against terrorism, which led towards a military
conflict meant to overthrow Sadam Hussain from the government of
Iraq. Joseph Nye's distinction of the US power as preponderant,
but not a dominant one (Nye, 1999: 24), is now clearer than ever.
The US has established the reach of their military power (though
the number of mistakes committed so far is remarkable); yet they
were unable to convince the U.N. and the rest of the world in general
about the legitimacy of their quest (also see Jacobsen's conditions
for intervention (1996)). The discourse about the threat to US national
security, following Nye's topology, has fluctuated between "A",
"B" and "C" throughout the development of the
current conflict against Iraq. The new war in Iraq, however, started
from the Executive, and coverage followed it, therefore, there is
no CNN effect in that respect. Nevertheless, recent coverage about
casualties, both of soldiers and civilians and of prisoners of war,
may give room for a CNN effect as an impediment on the fashion of
the "Vietnam syndrome" to rise. Just as well, coverage
of humanitarian needs of Iraqi people may develop a CNN effect as
an accelerant, but presumably on other actors rather than Washington,
since one of the justifications given for American intervention
was precisely the goal of providing the people of Iraq with a better
quality of life. In conclusion, even though there is potential of
a CNN effect in the fashion of a "bodybag effect" to happen
during the present conflict, it may not be as likely, since this
war began as a matter of the "A" list of US national interest,
hence, it is presumed that Washington will continue to use the media
as a propaganda apparatus, so the framing and indexing of news will
conform to the interests and guidance of the Executive, besides,
there is great domestic support at the moment, which means the American
people will be willing to take an increased number of casualties
compared to a humanitarian intervention not so linked to their national
interest. Many conclusions and assumptions can be given regarding
the theories presented in this paper and the current conflict in
Iraq. One thing that is certain, is that this war is a clear demonstration
of how both theories of impact of media intervention in foreign
policy making, the so-called "CNN effect" and "Manufacturing
Consent" collide, and the outcome of this confrontation is
yet to be seen.
Notas:
1
Because of space constraints, emphasis will be given to their conclusions
rather than their overall research.
2
Also on this, see Jacobsen, 1996, pag. 206.
3 In a similar fashion, Livingston
(1997, 9) notes, "the lack of media coverage of humanitarian
emergencies is most striking."
4See Livingston (1997) "Clarifying
the CNN effect: An Examination of Media effects According to Type
of Military Intervention"
5 This refers to Mermin's (1997:
399) findings regarding the 21 /November/1992 news reports.
6 Luttwak (1994) describes this
as "mammismo". The groundings of this phenomenon are the
change of demography, since families in the era of the "Great
Powers" used to be larger (four, five, six or more children),
and child mortality was high, therefore families were more used
to the idea of losing young members. Nowadays, however, families
are smaller and every member receives a large share of emotional
economy.
7This point seems a bit confusing,
if there was not a clear case of humanitarian crisis, why would
anyone want to intervene advocating humanitarian reasons?
8 Kohut and Toth (1994: 57) find
that public opinion tendencies towards intervention are fashioned
in the following typology: interventionists, 31% of the public,
those who would use force to protect oil as well as for humanitarian
purposes; noninterventionists, 29% against both missions; U.S.-centrics,
19% who would use force to protect oil, but not for humanitarian
aid; and one-worlders, 21%, who would use force for humanitarian
aid only.
References:
Cohen,
B. (1994) "A View from the Academy" in Taken by Storm:
The Media, Public Opinion and US Foreign Policy in the Gulf War.
Freedman, L. (2000) "Victims and Victors: Reflections on the
Kosovo War" Review of International Studies. Vol. 26.
Girardet, E. (1996) "Reporting Humanitarianism: Are the new
Electronic Media Making a Difference?" in From Massacres to
Genocide, Rotberg and Weiss, eds.
Gjelten, T. (2002) "Toward a New Professionalism in War Reporting"
<http://wwww.hamline.edu/world/backissues/gjelten6.html>
Gowing,
N. (1994) "Real-time TV Coverage from War, Does it Mae or Break
Government Policy?" Bosnia by Television.
Hoge, J. (1993) "The End of Predictability" Media Studies
Journal 7.
Hoge, J. (1994) "Media Pervasiveness", Foreign Affairs.
July/August.
Jacobsen, P. (1996) "National Interest, Humanitarianism or
CNN: What triggers UN Peace Enforcement After the Cold War?"
Journal of Peace Research. Vol. 33.
Jacobsen, P. (2000) "Focus on the CNN Effect Misses the Point:
The Real Media Impact on Conflict Management is Invisible and Indirect"
Journal of Peace Research.
Kohut, A. and Toth, R. (1994) "Arms and the People" Foreign
Affairs. November/December.
Maj. B. Lafferty, et. al. (1994) "The Impact of Media Information
on Enemy Effectiveness: A Model for Conflict" <http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/readings/media-laf.doc>
Livingston and Eachus (1995) "humanitarian Crises and US Foreign
Policy: Somalia and the CNN Effect Reconsidered" Political
Communication. 12(4).
Livingston, S. (1997) "Clarifying the CNN Effect: An Examination
of Media Effects According to Type of Military Intervention"
Research Paper.
Luttwak, E. (1994) "Where Are the Great Powers? At Home With
the Kids" Foreign Affairs. Vol. 73.
Mermin, J. (1997) "Television News and American Intervention
in Somalia" Political Science Quarterly, vol. 112.
Nye, J. (1999) "Redefining the National Interest", Foreign
Affairs. July/August.
Nye, J. (2002) "Redefining NATO's Mission in the Information
Age" <http://www.nato.int/docu/review/1999/9904-03.htm>
Robinson, P. (1999) "The CNN Effect: Can the News Media Drive
Foreign Policy?". Review of International Studies.
Robinson, P. (2000) "World Politics and Media Power: Problems
of Research Design" Media, Culture and Society. Vol. 22.
Robinson, P. (2001) "Theorizing the Influence of Media on World
Politics". European Journal of Communication. Vol. 16(4).
Semati, Mehdi (2002) Reflections on the Politics of the Global "Rolling
News" Television Genre" <http://www.tbsjournal.com/Archives/Spring01/Semati.html>
Smith, T. (1994) "In Defense of Intervention". Foreign
Affairs. November/December.
Mtra. Mónica Alejandra Peña Corona Rodríguez |