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The Mass Media's Impact on International Affairs from USIP (1997) 
The Mass Media's Impact on International Affairs Instantaneous broadcasts and a broad range of voices vying to be heard create new problems and challenges for government officials and the military. Television's ability to broadcast instantaneous images of international crises has placed a new burden on diplomats and government officials: the demand that they provide an immediate response. Yet in most instances, the often dramatic, emotional images shown on television have not controlled the U.S. foreign policy agenda nor forced substantive policy changes. These were among the conclusions of speakers at two recent discussions of the mass media's impact on international affairs organized by the U.S. Institute of Peace. The first event was a panel discussion moderated by David Gergen of the U.S. News & World Report at the Institute's "Virtual Diplomacy" conference held April 1 and 2 in Washington, D.C. (see Virtual Diplomacy). The second was a current issues briefing on May 21 moderated by Ted Koppel, anchor and managing editor of ABC News's Nightline. The latter event was held in conjunction with the Institute Press's recent publication of Late-Breaking Foreign Policy: The News Media's Influence on Peace Operations by Warren Strobel, White House correspondent for the Washington Times and a senior fellow at the Institute in 1994-95. The Need for Rapid Response At the Virtual Diplomacy conference's mass media panel discussion, Pam Benson, executive producer for international affairs at the Cable News Network (CNN), described CNN's real-time coverage of the attempted takeover of Russia's White House in 1991. CNN reporters were calling State Department officials for a response, but the officials didn't want to go on record so soon about an event that was just occurring, Benson said. The officials told reporters, "we're just watching this now on television ourselves, give us time [to assess the situation]." Panelist Tom Donilon, a partner in the international law firm of O'Melveny and Myers and former assistant secretary of state for public affairs, noted, however, that the failure to respond can be equally risky, resulting in a broadcast that conveys the message, "U.S. policy is adrift." To minimize this problem, the administration has to be disciplined in setting its own agenda, have a strategy in place, and be prepared to make responses based on the national interest, he said. However, quick decisions about what level of government official should respond to a situation in public are still required--the president? the secretary of state? the chief of staff? or someone else?--and thus whether to ratchet the importance of an event up or down. Panelist Margaret Tutwiler, senior vice president for communications at the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association and former State Department spokesperson, pointed out that the administration's response is further complicated because, unlike the old private cable communications of yore, television has multiple audiences, and it's very difficult to create one message that addresses all of their interests and concerns. The Media and the Military Panelist Lt. Gen. Anthony Zinni of the U.S. Marine Corps said that television has captured the initiative in defining the context in which events take place, how they are proceeding, and how the military, for example, is performing. "We have to tune in to CNN to see how we're doing," he said, adding that parties to a conflict--such as former warlord Mohamed Aideed in Somalia--are watching the same news programs and being influenced by what is reported. Donilon noted that the public has little patience for setbacks, as was well illustrated in Somalia after 18 U.S. soldiers were killed in 1993. The mission had accomplished a lot in terms of saving lives, but "the story," according to the media, was the setback, he said. If television had been present at the major battles of World War II, public reaction to the war might have been significantly different, he said. "I've often wondered what [the landing at] Normandy would have looked like [back home, in the living rooms of America] if there had been instantaneous coverage." Zinni added that instantaneous coverage puts enormous pressure on the military commanders because their tactics and casualties are scrutinized immediately and what the media reports impacts the morale of the troops. "There is a constant lens on your operation," he said. "That has never happened before in military history." The Media and Peacekeeping At the current issues briefing, author Warren Strobel said that the so-called "CNN effect"--whereby, supposedly, CNN films a crisis or disaster and policymakers rush to change the foreign policy agenda in response--is a myth. In Bosnia, for example, the mass media--including some reporters who hoped to influence U.S. foreign policy--filmed and reported on the atrocities of the war for years with no response from either the public or the Bush administration. "We're perfectly capable of watching horrible things on our TV screens [and doing nothing]," Strobel said. He quoted Warren Zimmerman, the last U.S. ambassador to Yugoslavia: "It wouldn't have mattered if television was going 24 hours around the clock with Serb atrocities. Bush wasn't going to get in." Ted Koppel cautioned that media efforts to influence foreign policy or public opinion are doomed to backfire. "Once we're perceived as having an agenda, we lose influence in direct proportion," he said. Strobel concluded that the media has had influence only in situations where there was a lack of leadership that left a vacuum in policy or communications. For example, the media seemed to have inordinate influence in the late 1980s and early 1990s only because there was a huge gap in our understanding of the world as the Soviet empire collapsed and of the ethnic conflicts that erupted in the aftermath, he said. Indeed, most changes in the impact the media has had on international affairs do not stem from technological advances, but rather from a shift in the military's focus from waging war to keeping the peace, Strobel argued. The unique nature of peacekeeping operations gives the news media more potential power and more freedom than in battlefield situations. For example, on the battlefield there is usually one source of information, while in peacekeeping operations, there are many sources of information--in Rwanda about 90 relief agencies were operating, and in Somalia several ethnic factions vied to get their messages across through the media. It's primarily as a result of the different nature and goals of peace operations, Strobel said, that "officials have to pay much more attention to the media and information than they did before." © 1997 United States Institute of Peace Back to the top To contact USIP : usip_requests@usip.org |