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Crises: The United States and the Bosnian Crisis, 1992�1995 Studying the Media, Public Opinion, and Foreign Policy in International
Abstract
This study presents an integrative model of the press, public opinion, and foreign policy relations during times of international crises. It combines theories of mass communications and international relations, with emphasis on the various stages of the crisis, the roles and functions of the media, and the different positions adopted by the press and the public vis-à-vis government foreign policy. The model is then applied to the United States during the Bosnian crisis (1992—1995), by examining commentary and editorials from The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, news headlines from USA Today and Washington Times, and public opinion data.The findings and conclusions regarding strong and significant correlations among media content, public opinion, and policy clarify the different roles of the press during various stages of an international crisis. They shed new light on scholars' and practitioners' understanding of the complex nature of theses relationships, during both times of crisis and more generally.
... Media framing is especially important in shaping the public's and decisionmakers' knowledge of the world (Bloch-Elkon 2007; Nelson et al. 1997). Policymakers, like the public, depend on media reports for most of their information about world events, as well as for understanding public opinion on these events (Bloch-Elkon 2007;Entman 2000). ...
... The NY Times is one of the main news sources for political elites in the United States and its influence is felt worldwide. The NY Times' impact on decision-makers is even greater for international affairs (Bloch-Elkon 2007), as it together with the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post have more foreign correspondents than all other American newspapers combined (Carroll 2006). ...
... Reporting of the conflicts in Jenin and Nahr al-Bared fit the post-Cold War morality framing discussed in previous research (Bloch-Elkon 2007;Entman 2000). The asymmetry in NY Times' framing of these two conflicts was seen in other media as well (The Washington Post, The Guardian, BBC, CNN). ...
Media framing of foreign conflicts determines the way in which the public and policy-makers perceive the causes, consequences and importance of those conflicts and where diplomatic and material resources are committed. Framing is manifested in, among other things, the amount of media
coverage of a particular conflict and the language used to describe the actors and events in that conflict. The type of framing employed determines whether the public will empathize with one of the sides involved or feel detached from events taking place far from them. This article builds
on earlier research on media framing through a study of two foreign conflicts that had a number of key similarities but were framed very differently. Framing is analysed through a comparison of New York Times coverage of army sieges of two Palestinian refugee camps: the first in the
town of Jenin in theWest Bank in 2002 and the second in Nahr al-Bared in Lebanon in 2007. The research examines the depth of coverage and the language used to portray the context of events, the two armies, combatants within the camps, civilian casualties, damage to property and the effectiveness
of the military operations. Analysis of differences in the reporting of these two conflicts expands on existing literature on media framing, discusses causes of inconsistent framing and elucidates the effect of framing on perceptions of reality in foreign conflict and the subsequent effect
on policy-making.
... Nuriyev (2015) suggests the South Caucasus faces a choice between historical models of cooperation, impacting relations with the West and regional powers like Russia, Iran, and Turkey. Even a decade ago, Azerbaijan showed interest in diplomacy for Nagorno-Karabakh conflict resolution, aiming to prevent regional conflicts and provide the EU access to energy resources (Bayramov, 2020;Shiriyev, 2013). This highlights the significance of security and energy in EU-Azerbaijan relations, underlining the need for a contemporary assessment of crisis management and political agenda-setting in EU external governance. ...
... However, some argue that Azerbaijan sees itself as independent and may need the EU less than vice versa. In the era often referred to as the 'New Great Game' for influence in the Caspian Sea region, Azerbaijan engages with the EU primarily in areas like energy, energy security, and transportation (Bayramov, 2020;Delcour and Wolczuk, 2021;Iskandarov and Gawliczek, 2020). While the Azeri political elite values economic cooperation but resists EU-driven political reforms, civil society appears more critical. ...
This paper uses qualitative discourse analysis to investigate how the Second Nagorno-Karabakh war in 2020 and Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 have impacted bilateral relations between the European Union and Azerbaijan in the realm of security and energy policy? The study takes into account geo-political developments in the aftermath of the 2018 Agreement on New Partnership Priorities, as well as contemplates the future of the European Neighbourhood Policy. In this context, the paper illuminates the interplay of EU external governance, agenda-setting, and crisis concepts. In essence, the paper asserts that the EU responds swiftly to crises, such as the Ukraine and Karabakh conflicts, through actions like mediation, investments, and deepening bilateral relations, while often overlooking the root causes. Additionally, the EU consistently emphasizes long-term strategies and energy policies, with security concerns becoming more prominent during crisis periods.
... Studies demonstrate that when a conflict is domestic, media coverage tends to support national foreign policy goals, especially when the national interest is threatened, thereby acting as a source of 'national integration' [39][40][41] or the unifying force behind government decisions and actions [42,43]. The so-called national interest is frequently a construct of the government, which is then shaped and propagated by the media. ...
... For example, see Refs. [13][14][15][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43]. Finally, there are studies that cover the concept of trust in the news media. ...
Since the tragic launch of the Israel—Hamas war (Gaza war) on October 7th, 2023, the role of Israeli media in shaping public discourse and national sentiment has been a subject of intense scrutiny. This article delves into the intricate relationship between media coverage and societal perceptions during the initial weeks following the terrorists’ invasion. It explores how Israeli media navigated the complex terrain of war reporting, balancing the duty of factual reporting with national security concerns and the psychological impact on the civilian population. The study highlights the media’s efforts to construct a narrative that not only informed the public but also fostered a sense of national unity and resilience. Through a comprehensive analysis of various media outlets, the article sheds light on the dynamics of media coverage in times of crisis, examining the interplay between journalistic practices, government policies, and public sentiment. This inquiry into the Israeli media’s coverage of the Gaza war provides valuable insights into the power of the press in shaping public opinion during periods of national upheaval and the ethical challenges inherent in reporting on conflict and terrorism.
... In particular, in the aftermath of 11 September 2001, when the Bush administration advanced a 'War on Terror' and designated Iran, together with Iraq and North Korea, as the 'axis of evil', the news coverage of 'war' received a lot of academic researchers' attention. This perspective seeks to pursue critical analysis of the close relationship between global media and officials to explicate the complexity that the media has in terms of impact on foreign policy, mainly in the United States and the United Kingdom (Bloch-Elkon, 2007;Bluth, 2004;Livingston, 1997;Soroka, 2003). Furthermore, research in the area explores media effects on public opinion and often leads to news framing analysis by identifying salient news frames and assessing their impact on public perception (Kull et al., 2003). ...
... The correspondents at AP, Voice of America (VOA) and The Washington Post mentioned that Korea is keen on knowing how the outside world looks at it; international news reports about Korea are important to South and North Korea because the ways in which news frames the conflict can affect foreign policy-making (Bloch-Elkon, 2007;Bluth, 2004;Livingston, 1997;Soroka, 2003). Superpowers are better equipped with satellites, and they have major international news agencies, which are agenda setters (Thussu, 2000). ...
This article attempts to investigate the applicability of the Propaganda Model (PM) elaborated by Herman and Chomsky within the context of the conflict between South and North Korea. Coupled with the identification of dominant news frames, this study draws on in-depth interviews with foreign correspondents in Seoul to explore journalistic practices in covering conflicts in the Korean Peninsula. The findings show that a conflict frame and a human interest frame were prominent in national and international news, respectively. This article further discusses the role of the international news media in reporting on international conflicts from sociological and geopolitical perspectives.
... Understanding the accuracy of this type of mass media is of particular importance since it can impact how the public perceives the risk posed by wildland fire emissions and negatively affect fire policy in a fire prone ecosystem . How media is presented affects public opinion and policy direction (Bloch-Elkon 2007), and this important and sensitive issue is no exception. ...
... The findings of this study indicate that urban cities like Fresno should be concerned with land management strategies outside their air basin jurisdiction. The mass media plays an important role in how the public perceives environmental issues (Boykoff and Boykoff 2007;Zamith et al. 2012) with the manner by which media is presented affecting public opinion and policy directions (Bloch-Elkon 2007). Additionally, the use of mass media as a risk communication tool can be problematic since messages are shaped and chosen by journalists on the basis of their own demands (Wakefield and Elliott 2003). ...
Understanding air quality impacts caused by smoke from wildland fire is a major concern in the western USA. The objectives of this paper were to examine news releases, news reports, and public nuisance complaints about smoke impacts caused by forest fires to determine if these different media sources were accurate indicators of wildland fire impacts to daily air quality from 2008 to 2013. Our findings suggest that media and complaints are poorly correlated to smoke impacts to air quality and should not be used as a proxy to establish days where air quality is impacted by smoke from forest fires. With the exception of 2008, media sources failed in accurately capturing ground level smoke impacts. Media sources were found to predict a smoke impact to air quality 32% of the time, while nuisance complaints predicted 15%. Successful smoke management and wildland fire policy should include a more consistently accurate message of smoke impacts. The majority of the smoke observed in Fresno originated from northern California forest fires and on a few days from forests south of the San Joaquin Valley (SJV). Urban cities in the SJV should be concern with land management strategies outside their air basin jurisdiction.
... Across political systems, the media's influence is just as profound. It can influence whether political leaders and international organizations recognize the existence of a "crisis situation," which in turn, can determine if and how they respond to the situation (Bloch-Elkon, 2007). The media's influence on the communication of crisis events is a vital component of both theoretical and empirical discussions within the discipline of political science. ...
... Indeed, public impressions of crisis-related leadership are primarily obtained through the words and images relayed by the media (Bankoff, 2011;Hannigan, 2006). Although the forms of media usage have evolved over the years -from newspaper reports, to the constant 24/7 "CNN-style" television coverage, to the immediate postings through social media of major events -the impact that the media has on shaping citizens' images of political leadership, public opinion, and governmental activity remains extremely strong (Bloch-Elkon, 2007;Hannigan, 2012;Quarantelli, 1991;Rodriguez & Dynes, 2006;Scanlon, 2008). ...
Crises are key research topics in the discipline of political science. This chapter provides an overview of the contributions of political science scholarship for improving our understanding of the political dimensions of crises and crisis communication. As we shall see, political scientists in various subfields of the discipline have been able to identify many of the main determinants and impacts of crisis scenarios on a wide variety of actions and behavior. As a result, political science research reveals the importance of studying the political dimensions of crises, as well as the political consequences of crisis communication on citizen behavior, political leadership, organizational activity, and public-sector performance, both within and across governmental jurisdictions.
... Етап 3. Деескалація: критичне ставлення до часткового успіху перемовин як в медіа, так і в громадському обговоренні (Bloch-Elkon, 2007). ...
Оглядова стаття презентує сучасні теорії медіатизації війни та дискурсивні практики аналізу медіа. У методиці відбору матеріалів послуговувались даними міжнародних наукометричних баз. Аналізований контент (120 книг та статей у стартовій вибірці, 87-в остаточній) відібраний на платформах Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar за ключовими словами (медіатизація; медіатизація війни; російсько-українська війна та медіа; цифрова війна) та з використанням фільтрів. Запропонована авторками структура інтегрує три проблемних напрямки: різні фази медіатизації війни та конфліктів з огляду на провідні теорії; інтерпретативні методики аналізу та загальні результати ефективності наративних та фреймінгових аналітичних практик; найпоказовіші дискусії в межах досліджуваних тем. Актуальна сьогодні українська тематика залучена до кожного розділу та підрозділу запропонованої статті. Зосереджено увагу на корпусі наукових матеріалів, присвячених медіатизації конфліктів та криз, що поєднує знаних акторів комунікаційної дії з відповідною стратегією медіаефектів та впливів. Розгортання різних фаз медіатизації війни в ґенезі подано на основі теорії Е. Госкінза і Б. О'Лафліна з окремим представленням війни цифрової (Digital War). У новітньому науковому контенті об'єднано статті про революційний вплив на хід війни технологічних розробок (дрони, безпілотники, кіберзброя, високоточні боєприпаси та ін.), про наслідки цифрових технологій у новій екології війни (мобільна, партисипаторна, проксі війна, цифрове насильство, пропаганда) і, нарешті, про нову логіку війни, у якій перенасиченість медіаконтенту призводить до зменшення світової уваги, емпатичного вигоряння і, найсуперечливіше-до системної кризи гуманітарного знання та, незважаючи на документування та поширення, до забування.
Ключові слова: медіатизація війни; медіафреймінг; наративна теорія; цифрова війна; російсько-українська війна; емпатичне вигоряння.
... Desde la teoría de las relaciones internacionales, por mucho tiempo la opinión pública fue vista como meramente reactiva frente a los discursos de las elites; sin embargo, en las últimas décadas su influencia ha sido reconsiderada, viéndola como un factor fundamental en determinados eventos internacionales (Bloch-Elkon, 2007;Holsti, 2004). En este caso en particular planteamos la existencia de una influencia "bottom-up" (de abajo hacia arriba), en que la opinión pública es la que guía las acciones de los dirigentes, en vez del sentido opuesto (Kertzer y Zeitzoff, 2017). ...
Between 1986 and 1987, the Chilean and Bolivian governments held talks on Bolivia's maritime aspirations. In these negotiations, which became known as the "fresh approach", Bolivia proposed that Chile cede either a corridor north of Arica or an enclave (on the Chilean coast). In exchange, Bolivia would offer non-territorial compensations, i.e., principally the use of the waters of the altiplano or Andean Plateau. In this paper we seek to identify the reasons for the failure of these negotiations, being the last in which Chile agreed to discuss a territorial transfer, in which we argue that public opinion played a key role.
... Media framing significantly shapes the public's and decision-maker's world knowledge (Bloch-Elkon 2007; Nelson et al. 1997). Like the public policymakers depend on media reports for most of their information about world events and for understanding public opinion on these events (Bloch-Elkon 2007;Entman 2000). The public often adopts frames from media, social activists, discussions, and debates to make sense of the issues (Druckman and Nelson, 2003;Gamson, 1992). ...
Arguably, journalistic practices should outline conflict reporting with a balanced approach to elicit non-violent responses. To date, no study has unfolded the coverage of the Indo-Pak potential war fueling “water dispute” by underpinning the theoretical notion of war and peace journalistic practices. Thus, drawing an analogy to war and peace journalism model, this article examines the media framing of the India–Pakistan water dispute in the USA, Chinese, Indian, and Pakistani newspapers. The study used a content analysis method to examine the use of framing techniques in newspapers. Findings supported that the global press' framing of the water dispute between India and Pakistan was dominated by war frames compared to peace frames. The Indian press used more war frames among the four countries while covering water disputes between rival nuclear neighbors. Moreover, it was found that the USA and Chinese press gave negligible coverage. The implications of the findings are discussed.
... Fifth, we take the informational environment-secret or public settlements-as exogenous. Several scholars argue that the canonical audience cost mechanism is problematic when leaders can manipulate the interpretation and transmission of their actions during crisis bargaining (Slantchev, 2006;Bloch-Elkon, 2007;Levendusky and Horowitz, 2012;Downes and Sechser, 2012). We recognize the importance of this concern, but adding an option for the Home leader to manipulate the citizen's information to the already complex optimization problem here is beyond the scope of this paper. ...
We study the problem of how citizens should punish or reward a leader's choices during international crises. Audiences should impose costs rooted in citizens’ preferences over policy outcomes, but that need not mean that these costs directly reflect the citizens’ preferences over actions. Instead, rewards and punishments are valued for their equilibrium consequences. To understand how citizens’ policy preferences shape electoral accountability, we characterize the retention strategies that maximize citizen welfare. In the optimal strategy, citizens always punish leaders who initiate crises and then back down. This is a robust finding, and true even though the citizens have no intrinsic preferences for policy consistency. Whether they punish leaders for backing down rather than going to war, on the other hand, depends on the status quo and on the costs of war. Importantly, these strategies of rewarding and punishing leaders need not have any immediate connection to voter's ex ante preferences over war and peace, even if preferences over policy outcomes ultimately motivate citizen behavior. This has important implications for interpreting empirical and experimental results related to audience costs.
... For example, reference [40] has shown that community concern about environmental issues grows as media attention on and reporting about these issues grows. Media reporting and a consequence of media pressure can also affect action taken or the willingness to set some measures [41]. ...
As producers of economic and cultural goods, media companies are subject to a double responsibility: regarding how they operate and how they represent reality in their products. Thus, their social responsibility is primarily the “brain print” they leave on their audience. Communication of, about, and for sustainability through mass media is therefore essential to create a shared understanding of societal values on sustainability, creating public engagement, and contributing to sustainable development. Accordingly, the present study aims at understanding how media (companies) take their responsibility as key communicators in the public sphere and analyze how they communicate and thus construct the sustainability discourse through their products. For this, sustainability-related content produced and broadcasted by the two largest commercial media companies in Germany (RTL and ProSiebenSat1; n = 50 online articles and n = 89 videos, 601 min in total) was analyzed by qualitative content analysis and rhetoric text analysis to understand what and how media communicate sustainability. Results show that most media sustainability-related content addresses food issues, followed by issues regarding resources and the environment, thus contributing to the achievement of some of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Namely: SDG#2 (zero hunger), #6 (clean water and sanitation), #13 (climate action), #14 (life below water), and #15 (life on land). These issues are primarily communicated logically, appealing to the audience’s reason (logos, 76%), while the ethical appeal ethos (22%) and the emotional pathos (2%) scarcely occur. The analysis also leaves room for discussion regarding the responsibility of media companies in their role as communicators of, about, and for sustainability; about how they fulfill their responsibility in accordance with the SDG Media Compact, and about the opportunities and risks of applying different rhetorical appeals.
... 38 Vgl. etwa: Soroka 2003Bloch-Elkon 2007. 39 Vgl. ...
... Public opinion tends to be easily affected by to the way a government and the news media frame international affairs (Bennett 1990;Bloch-Elkon 2007;Entman 2004;Lim and Seo 2009;Soroka 2003). A recent study by Lim and Seo (2009) noted that ordinary citizens heavily depend upon official statements by government representatives and media coverage to know world issues, because international affairs is a complex issue that is out of direct reach of ordinary citizens (McCombs, Danielian and Wanta 1995;Lippmann 1922Lippmann /1997. ...
This article examines the link between public support for and
public knowledge about development cooperation in South
Korea. Challenging previous research on established donor
countries, we find that in Korea, there is a high level of public
support for development cooperation but very little knowledge
about it. We argue that this can be explained by three main
factors. First, Korea recently transitioned from being a recipient
of development aid to being a donor. Second, Korean development
cooperation is conducted as a government-centred process with limited influence from civil society. Third, the dissemination of information on development cooperation is dominated by what we call “aid propaganda”, where aid is advertised primarily as a means of improving Korea’s national prestige, while the situation in the recipient countries of the Global South is largely ignored.
... At the present time, the attention of the media is focused mainly on subjects related to the fi nancial crisis. However, a strong correlation has been found between the role of the press and actions undertaken during periods of crisis, and to a certain degree, the media have even infl uenced the level of acceptance of certain policies (Bloch-Elkon, 2007;Lee, 1999). ...
This paper discusses the role and utilization of journalistic sources in the process of communicating the transitional path of a society in crisis towards economic and sustainable growth. It is mainly concerned with the general tendency of the press to display a high degree of manipulation of public opinion by reduction of the diversity of sources and/or their misuse. Cyprus was selected as a case study not only because newspapers still play a dominant role in shaping public opinion in contrast to New Media, but also because sustainable growth has been the basic argument and rhetoric in governmental communication policy, which promoted it as one of the main means in overcoming the ongoing economic/banking crisis the country has been facing since the bailout of the banking sector in 2013. The aim of this research is to examine which categories of journalistic sources shape this topic in the current public sphere and the ways journalists perceive and practice the utilization of their sources. Content analysis has been employed as the basic methodological tool, while a questionnaire survey on journalists of the national press was additionally conducted in order to explain these findings and conclude the study.
... It thus comes with no surprise that military strategic communicators have often been identified as authoritative voices in the conflict news coverage (Knightley, 2004;McLaughlin, 2002), even if the military by far has no deterministic impact on the news (Brunner & Cavelty, 2009;Schleicher, 2016a). Especially, when conflicts last longer than initially expected with an increasing number of casualties and political elite dissent, the media can become increasingly critical in its framing of military operations (Bloch-Elkon, 2007;Hallin, 1989;Robinson et al., 2009). In addition, it is important to emphasize that the military's control over the flow of information decreased recently due to the rise of digital communication. ...
Marc Jungblut extends existing knowledge on the role of strategic communication in conflict news by examining four violent conflicts. He relies on an automated content analysis of texts by 52 strategic communicators, such as politicians, NGOs, social movements, as well as on the international news coverage in 17 media outlets. By analyzing over 80,000 texts in seven languages, the book demonstrates that media visibility is almost exclusively granted based on ethnocentrism and elite status. The journalistic framing of conflict events, however, is much more context-dependent and shows a higher degree of independence from elite voices and strategic communication in general.
Contents
• The Relationship between Strategic Communication and News Coverage
• Strategic Communicators in Violent Conflicts
• Influences on the (Conflict) News Production Process
• The (Potential) Impact of Conflict News Coverage
• Analyzing the Determinants of Strategic Communicators’ Influence
Target Groups
• Scholars and students of communication science and political science
• Politicians, NGO practitioners, journalists
The Author
Dr. Marc Jungblut is a researcher at the Department of Media and Communication at the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich. His research focuses on political communication, conflict and terrorism news coverage, strategic communication and computational social science.
... There is evidence that media may influence crisis management, particularly when policy is unclear, media coverage is critically framed and focuses on suffering people, or when there is a lack of government consensus, as is common in the early stages of a crisis. Examples are the Cable News Network effect during humanitarian crises or the media invoking a rationale for humanitarian military intervention (Bloch-Elkon, 2007;Robinson, 2000). Consequences may thus be conceived on the societal level by the shaping of social level processes such as political socialization, decision-making and collective actions (de Vreese, 2005). ...
Previous research on media framing of wildfire has chiefly been concerned with the nature of wildfire in the context of climate change and with framing effects on policy and public opinion. Empirical studies on media content, hence what is mediated to crisis managers and the public concerning authorities’ and the public's response, seem to be largely missing. This is remarkable, given that the media represent main sources of information that may influence crisis management and shape public opinion. Thus, the aim of this study was to identify key media frames relating to portrayals of public and authority responses during and after a wildfire crisis. The study is based on media articles from two time periods: immediately after the fire and 1 year later. We used a thematic method of analysis (TA), thus an inductive, “bottom‐up” approach. A core frame, Responsibility/accountability is identified, underpinned by two sub‐themes. One sub‐theme relates to the causes of the fire and its escalation, revealing a number of different interrelated blame frames. The second sub‐theme refers to management of the crisis, reflecting both authorities’ and citizens’ responses. The deficiencies of the former are implicitly suggested to have forced citizens to act to compensate for their inadequacy. The main theoretical contribution is the identification of an interrelationship between frames in relation to different groups of individuals responding to a crisis, pointing to a more complex view of framing effects. In addition, results show how media tend to assess crisis management based on idealistic criteria, inevitably making the evaluation negative. This contributes to an understanding of how media blame frames, thus “blame games,” may unfold. Practical implications of these results are discussed.
... Moreover, governments can use social media to frame and market their desired resolution to a crisis among social media users, citizen journalists, and global media institutions. Importantly, social media framing may be most potent during times of crises as publics scramble to make sense of events, while journalists are likely to "rally around the flag" and adopt the government's framing of events (Auerbach & Bloch-Elkon, 2005;Bloch-Elkon, 2007). Yet a government's framing is confounded by the fact that other actors involved in the crisis will offer their own narration of events leading to a frame competition. ...
Mediated public diplomacy literature examines the engagement of foreign audiences by governments via mediated channels. To date, scholars have examined the competitive contest between global rivals in promoting and contesting one another's frames as reflected in global news media coverage. Recognizing the meaningful impact of social media platforms, along with the global rise of government-sponsored media organizations, the current study builds on previous mediated public diplomacy scholarship by expanding the scope of the literature beyond the earned media perspective to also include paid, shared, and owned media. The article presents a revised definition of the term mediated public diplomacy along with a case study of government to foreign stakeholder engagement via the social media platform, Twitter.
... Such studies have found that where public opinion leads, foreign policy makers follow (Hartley and Russett, 1992;Jacobs and Page, 2005). Conversely, other studies have evaluated journalists' willingness to promote government frames during times of crises (Bloch-Elkon, 2007;Kim, 2000;Lee and Yang, 1996;Park, 2003;Yu and Riffe, 1998). While the foreign policy maker-journalist dyad has received ample attention from scholars, few studies to date have analysed how governments employ frames in the realm of diplomacy. ...
Recent years have seen the migration of Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MFAs) to social media in a practice referred to as digital diplomacy. Social media enable MFAs to craft frames so as to influence audiences’ perception of foreign affairs. Such framing is especially relevant during times of war as states seek to legitimize their policies. Notably, given that social media are inherently visual platforms, MFAs are now visual narrators. Few studies to date have extended
the reach of framing theory to that of digital diplomacy during conflict. This study addresses this gap by analysing 795 tweets published by the Israeli MFA during the 2014 Gaza War. The authors’ analysis demonstrates that the Israeli MFA crafted 14 linguistic frames that were used to legitimize Israel’s policies. Notably, the MFA used images to support these frames and it is through images that the linguistic frames were made to resonate with Israeli strategic narratives. The authors pay attention to how images published by the Israeli MFA constitute three visual tropes and highlight how images function to augment frames (which focus on the present) to broader narratives that involve the past, present and future. Here, they explore how images invoke the past to illuminate the present and future, and create a shared identity in the context of the Gaza War.
... When conducting an analysis of popular geopolitics, newspaper editorials have particular relevance. First, editorials differ markedly from ordinary news reports due to their often explicitly opinionated and argumentative tone, with the purpose of influencing both elite and general opinion (Bloch-Elkon, 2007;Golan & Lukito, 2015;Trenz 2007). Second, and somewhat paradoxically, editorials tend to diverge little from the official line promoted by the government, especially on foreign affairs (Golan & Lukito, 2015;Nikolaev & Porpora, 2007). ...
Geopolitical interests and identities play an integral part in the Ukraine conflict, which for many observers has marked an end to hopes of Russia’s successful integration into Western political and security structures. This article observes how Finnish and Estonian newspaper editorials reproduce and mobilise geopolitical representations and identities in their commentary on the Ukraine conflict and related articulation of national foreign policy prescriptions. The critical discourse analysis reveals that both Finland and Estonia are geopolitically positioned by the newspapers into (Western) Europe, on one hand, and into Russia’s neighbourhood, on the other. Nevertheless, in dealing with the apparent fears and anxieties prompted by the latter position, the newspapers adopt highly diverging discursive strategies closely associated with the differing foreign policy orientations and histories of the two countries. Based on the analysis, we argue that studying newspapers as popular geopolitical actors sheds important light on the agency of the media in national foreign policy formation.
... At the present time, the attention of the media is focused mainly on subjects related to the fi nancial crisis. However, a strong correlation has been found between the role of the press and actions undertaken during periods of crisis, and to a certain degree, the media have even infl uenced the level of acceptance of certain policies (Bloch-Elkon, 2007;Lee, 1999). ...
This paper discusses the role of journalistic sources in the process of communicating the transitional path of a society in crisis towards economic and sustainable growth. It is mainly concerned with the general tendency of the press to display a high degree of manipulation of the public opinion by reduction of the diversity of sources and/or their misuse.
Cyprus was selected as a case study not only because newspapers still play a dominant role in shaping the public opinion in contrast to new media. In addition, sustainable growth has been the basic communication argument on behalf of the government, which promoted it as one of the means in overcoming the ongoing economic/banking crisis the country has been facing since the bailout of the banking sector in 2013. This paper examines the content of Greek-Cypriot newspapers on matters of sustainable growth during the year 2013, which marked the peak of the banking crisis in the country. The aim of this research is to examine which journalistic sources shape this topic in the public sphere, within the framework of the current communication environment. Content analysis has been employed.
... Studies (Benefo, 2004;Bloch-Elkon, 2007;Bratić, 2006;Catalán-Matamoros, 2011) have confirmed that the mass media influence public attitudes and decisions. The weight of this influence could be linked to how media structure news stories concerning health issues. ...
Mass media cannot cure virus but can cure its spread. Framing of news stories in the Nigerian media (newspapers) is much more influenced by the economic motive of the journalists; picking news angle that arouses readers’ interests in order to sell more copies in the keen competitive media market. The 2014 Ebola outbreak is a litmus test of how Nigerian media framed health issues, which depict the news perspective most interest to them. Through content analysis of two daily newspapers reports of Ebola during the outbreak in Nigeria, this study established the framing patterns employed while reporting as well as the preponderant frames used. The outcome is used to justify the priority upheld between the competing newspapers interests to sell and the media social responsibility towards containing the outbreak. The much capitalisation on treatment/containment frame portrayed the newspapers purposive interest to free the society of the outbreak, a reflection of its social responsibility role. The priority, which pose no threat on the professionalism of journalism was not only much appraised but also recommended for all media involvement in crisis reports. © 2016, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Press. All rights reserved.
... Diplomats have traditionally regarded journalists as an important target audience during times of political crisis, given that the media has long been seen as one of the primary crafters of public discourse. This central role has shown to shape not only public opinion, but also policy makersan undeniably powerful avenue to allow diplomatic agents to achieve their aims during times of crisis (or otherwise) (Bloch-Elkon, 2007;Brewer, 2006;Entman, 2004;Jacobs & Page, 2005). Indeed, it was this very recognition of the media's powerful role and their migration online which motivated MFAs to turn their attention online and to adopt the use of social media platforms for official diplomatic use (Seib, 2012). ...
From the power of the hashtag to frame political discourse online, to the use of online messenger services such as Whatsapp to conduct press briefings, the technological revolution has had a substantial impact on the practice of crisis communication. From their extensive reach capabilities to the instant power of connection, popular online platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are demonstrating to their users and observers alike that the age of the digital – in particular the age of social media – has altered how we now practice and perceive the role (and power) of communication during times of political crisis. However not all has been smooth sailing, with such shifts in communication strategies creating an increasing amount of hyperbolic discourse or “myths” concerning what diplomatic actors are actually doing online. These myths have been informed by the possible or expected power of online technologies and not by what is actually happening in practice. Therefore if communication strategies are to become truly effective in the digital age, such hyperbolic discourse surrounding the technological revolution needs to be dissected and discussed. We need to separate hype from genuine transformations within the digital crisis communication arena, and move the discussion from that of an online presence focus, to one which is centred around strategic output and effectiveness. Thus situated within these changing technological shifts, this article seeks to explore a number of myths surrounding diplomatic crisis communication practice and provide a number of strategic methods on how ministries of foreign affairs (MFAs) may best move past these myths in order to create a crisis communication strategy which is effective, and measurable. At its core, this article provides MFA policy makers and practitioners with a road map for strategic crisis communication success.
... Studies show that when a conflict is domestic, media coverage tends to support national foreign policy goals, especially when the national interest is threatened, thereby acting as a source of 'national integration' (Bloch-Elkon, 2007;Paletz, 2002;Schudson, 2002) or unifying force behind government decisions/actions (Rivenburgh, 1996;Waisbord, 2002). The alleged national interest is often constructed by the government, whose interest in turn is constructed by the media and then this often follows the public to affirm similar beliefs. ...
This article explores whether national political agendas influenced the content of domestic and foreign television news media coverage of the 2011 Israel–Hamas Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange deal. The deal, which released Israeli soldier Shalit in exchange for 1,027 prisoners, is the largest prisoner exchange agreement in Israeli history for a single live soldier, but the third largest prisoner exchange agreement as a whole. A quantitative content analysis was conducted on 2,162 news reports from five international and national news networks – BBC, CNN, Fox and Israel's Channels 1 and 2. The findings suggest important differences in the way foreign and national news networks cover controversial political events. Findings reveal that Israeli networks strongly aligned themselves with the government's position, while the BBC provided the most balanced coverage. Prominent differences were found between the two US channels – CNN and Fox News. This work builds on a growing body of research on media framing of political events.
... In the late 1980s and early 1990s, some analysts posited a link between television reporting and the US government's decision to intervene in crises in Somalia and the Balkans in what was termed the 'CNN effect' (Robinson, 2002). It was asserted that media framing led to public pressure on policymakers, thereby affecting foreign policy decisions (Bloch-Elkon, 2007;Entman, 2000;Evans, 2010). However, subsequent research failed to find a clear causal link between news reporting and decision-making, and indicated a variety of complex factors that affect foreign policy (Gilboa, 2005;Seib, 2002). ...
This work examines the ways in which YouTube videos inform audiences about international news, issues, and events. As new media increasingly becomes the public’s primary news source, research has produced conflicting contentions of how, and to whom, information is conveyed. Some studies have found Twitter and Facebook to be important tools for social organization and facilitating political involvement. Others, however, assert that these media act as echo chambers, reinforcing preexisting views rather than providing new information or perceptions. This research analyzes videos pertaining to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict to reveal how they provide information. The findings show that the methods – empirical and visceral – used to frame information in YouTube videos correspond to the narratives supported by the uploaders. Additionally, the results indicate YouTube videos are watched by a heterogeneous public and have the potential to transcend selective exposure and present viewers with new information and perspectives.
... At present media attention is mainly focused on issues related to the financial crisis (budget cuts, unemployment, social movements, etc.), and is not covering other issues that affect people less directly (Martínez et al., 2012), such as environmental issues. A strong correlation has been found between the role of the press and actions taken in times of crisis, and to a certain extent, it has even affected the degree of acceptance of certain policies (Bloch-Elkon, 2007; Lee, 1999). Increased media pressure can create uncertainty within local governments, and so they may tend to conceal information in order to avoid compromising situations that would jeopardise their chances of re-election. ...
... Finally, the least prevalent frame used by Russia was the economic consequence frame which was not prevalent at all during the first time interval and was the least prevalent frame during the second time interval (6%). This could be a result of the fact that Russia used this frame only when commenting on US sanctions imposed on Russia during the escalation of the Ukrainian conflict (Bloch-Elkon, 2007). As was the case with the Entman scale, no US tweets mentioning Russia scored 0.5 or higher on any generic frame scale during the first time interval. ...
Recently governments and foreign ministries (MFAs) have embraced Social Networking Sites (SNS) in a practice referred to as digital diplomacy. By using SNS to comment on world events, MFAs utilize such channels in order to frame, or portray, foreign governments. We examined how a dyad of nations, US
–
Russia, framed one another on MFA twitter channels over a three months period encompassing the Crimean crisis. Methodology used for detecting frames in traditional media was adjusted and employed to >100 tweets. Results demonstrate that the manner in which both nations framed one another altered dramatically following the onset of the Crimean crisis, from rare usage to frequently employing the morality frame in order to exhibit their own morality while questioning the other's. Specifically, the morality frame became the second most prevalent frame used by the US (38% of tweets) and the third by Russia (16%). Results indicate that during conflicts, nations use SNS as arenas for moral de-legitimization of adversaries. As morality contributes to a nation's soft power, such de-legitimization constitutes diplomatic pressure which depletes soft power resources of an adversary and undermines his ability to exercise hard power. SNS may, therefore, be regarded as novel platforms for diplomatic symbolic violence.
... There is also evidence that media may play a central role in influencing actual management of crises, particularly when policy is unclear, media coverage is critically framed and focuses on suffering people, or when there is a lack of government consensus, as is common in the early stages of a crisis. Examples are the CNN (Cable News Network) effect during humanitarian crises or the media invoking a rationale for humanitarian military intervention (Bloch-Elkon, 2007;Robinson, 2000). Indeed, Entman (2007) notes that media influence the distribution of power by determining who gets what, when and how. ...
The aim of this study was to identify and analyze the ways in which images and reactions
of the public are described and framed in media articles and reports. Reporting from six
major events affecting the Swedish public was studied using a thematic method of
analysis.The results show three dynamic interrelated processes at work simultaneously in
framing the public: identification, characterization and evaluation.A significant contribution
of this study is the emphasis on how this often subtle and implicit framing influences
the portrayal of human reactions, thus possibly influencing the expectations and evaluations
of both the public in general and crisis managers in particular.
... Similarly, research on framing shows how the placement and emphasis of certain aspects of a news report will have a significant impact on the public's perception of events and consequently affect public opinion and policymaking (Bloch-Elkon, 2007;Druckman, 2004;Entman, 2000;Evans, 2010a). During periods of societal strife, newspapers often turn into symbols of their community and become targets for rival groups (Olzak and West, 1991: 458). ...
The functioning of the media as a public watchdog and as a neutral forum for society’s different perspectives is a model that is seen as vital in modern democracies. However, in societies with major social rifts these functions may conflict with one another and alter the media’s role. This work contributes to the theoretical discussion of the role of the media, through a study of the media in religious-secular conflict in Turkey and Israel. In recent years, religious parties’ electoral gains have challenged secular communities’ hold on the countries’ decision-making institutions. With the increase in religious-secular political tensions, the media on both sides have taken a central role, highlighting perceived dangers presented by the other side. As the media come to function as the vanguard of the opposing sides, the impact is twofold: loss of an important public watchdog and a deepening of societal rifts.
... At present media attention is mainly focused on issues related to the financial crisis (budget cuts, unemployment, social movements, etc.), and is not covering other issues that affect people less directly ( Martínez et al., 2012), such as environmental issues. A strong correlation has been found between the role of the press and actions taken in times of crisis, and to a certain extent, it has even affected the degree of acceptance of certain policies ( Bloch-Elkon, 2007;Lee, 1999). Increased media pressure can create uncertainty within local governments, and so they may tend to conceal information in order to avoid compromising situations that would jeopardise their chances of re-election. ...
Purpose
– The aim of this study is to analyse the level of environmental, economic, and social engagement disclosed by local governments, taking into account factors such as political ideology and media pressure.
Design/methodology/approach
– The authors analysed 102 large Spanish municipalities, using data from 2011. An econometric model was used based on dependency techniques for cross-sectional data. The Tobit technique is suitable, since it enables the authors to address particular considerations of extreme scores on the dependent variable.
Findings
– The results show that local governments report less strategic and socio-economic information when subjected to strong media pressure, because the press tends to focus on unusual, negative news, and ignores other issues such as the environment. However, in municipalities governed by left-wing parties, media pressure actually promotes disclosure of this type of information.
Research limitations/implications
– It would be interesting to create an information index which includes local governments' disclosure, spanning a period of several years.
Practical implications
– Particularly in municipalities governed by a left-wing party, media pressure favours the disclosure of sustainability information, including information about the municipal corporation and strategic and social issues.
Originality/value
– This study analyses the impact of the press on the disclosure of sustainability information by local governments and also tests the moderating effect of the ruling party's political ideology. The authors did not find any paper that had analysed this impact before.
... The mass media play an important role as gatekeepers of information about climate change (Carvalho & Burgess, 2005). Media discourse not only provides climate change information to the public (Brulle et al., 2012;Carvalho & Burgess, 2005;Trumbo, 1996), but also helps guide policy preferences (Bloch-Elkon, 2007). From the audience perspective, the public may rely on these interpretative cues to form attitudes about national policies about proposed policy changes. ...
This study investigates how prime-time television news portrayed attributions of responsibility for climate change policy issues in the United States, China, and Canada. In analyzing news coverage of the 2009 climate change summit in Copenhagen, we distinguish between causal and treatment responsibility. Additionally, we develop frames to test Cerutti’s conceptualization of responsibility attribution (2010). The results suggest that television news in the 3 countries portrayed treatment responsibility differently. The prominence of morality, global justice, and national efficacy frames varied across countries, and these conditions were associated with the treatment responsibility frame, partially lending support to the validity of Cerutti’s conceptualization.
... The mass media play an important role as gatekeepers of information about climate change (Carvalho & Burgess, 2005). Media discourse not only provides climate change information to the public (Brulle et al., 2012;Carvalho & Burgess, 2005;Trumbo, 1996), but also helps guide policy preferences (Bloch-Elkon, 2007). From the audience perspective, the public may rely on these interpretative cues to form attitudes about national policies about proposed policy changes. ...
This study investigates how prime-time television news portrayed attributions of responsibility for climate change policy issues in the United States, China, and Canada. In analyzing news coverage of the 2009 climate change summit in Copenhagen, we distinguish between causal and treatment responsibility. Additionally, we develop frames to test Cerutti’s conceptualization of responsibility attribution (2010). The results suggest that television news in the 3 countries portrayed treatment responsibility differently. The prominence of morality, global justice, and national efficacy frames varied across countries, and these conditions were associated with the treatment responsibility frame, partially lending support to the validity of Cerutti’s conceptualization.
... Growing competition between news agencies has contributed to the evolution of a new trend that has been designated as market-driven journalism (McManus, 1994), consumer and supplier relationship (Tai & Chang, 2002), and commercial journalism (McChesney, 1999). Despite this bi-directionality, the role of news media in shaping the public perception of social issues remains well documented (Baum & Potter, 2008;Bloch-Elkon, 2007;Bratton & Mattes, 2003;Hodgetts, Bolam, & Stephens, 2005;Nisbet & Myers, 2011). Society draws upon the communicative acts of newspapers and through its subsequent elaboration in the public sphere, representations-for example, those of poverty-are born, maintained, developed and changed. ...
The meanings of social problems like poverty develop within the public sphere. This paper uses the theory of social representations to examine how poverty is represented in British newspapers. Poverty has been discussed and interpreted in numerous ways, and newspapers not only provide a platform for these elaborations but also contribute to shaping public understanding on the issue. The study sampled news coverage on poverty in four British newspapers during two randomly chosen one-month periods in the years 2001 and 2011. The data set of news reports (n = 274) was thematically analysed to examine representations of poverty. The study found that in the domestic context, media represents poverty as a problem limited to vulnerable groups such as children and the elderly. With a lack of discussion on the wider socio-economic causes and contributing factors, poverty within the UK appears as an ‘orphan phenomenon’ with an unknown genesis. In contrast, the representations of poverty outside the UK are vivid and elaborate, and the news reports hold the socio-political inefficiency of countries responsible for poverty. The study also found that the media uses poverty to make sense of catastrophic events in society: the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States and the London riots of 2011 were both anchored using poverty. This paper discusses the representational dynamics of these findings and argues that the media representations distance general society from poverty, representing it as a problem of the other. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
... Similarly, there is no consensus on how public opinion shapes foreign policy. Many would argue that the effect of public opinion depends on the type of foreign policy decisions to be made, the political process, media goals at the time and perceived relevance of the public opinion among others (Bloch-Elkon, 2007). ...
This paper examines the Cold War rhetoric in US–Russia relations by looking at the 2008 Russia–Georgia war as a major breaking point. We investigate the links between media, public opinion and foreign policy. In our content analysis of the coverage in two major US newspapers, we find that the framing of the conflict was anti-Russia, especially in the initial stages of the conflict. In addition, our survey results demonstrate that an increase in the media exposure of US respondents increased the likelihood of blaming Russia exclusively in the conflict. This case study helps us understand how media can be powerful in constructing a certain narrative of an international conflict, which can then affect public perceptions of other countries. We believe that the negative framing of Russia in the US media has had important implications for the already-tenuous relations between the US and Russia by reviving and perpetuating the Cold War mentality for the public as well as for foreign policymakers.
Bosnia and Herzegovina have progressed extremely well in the last few years on its path towards the European Union. The latest success was represented by the opening of the accession negotiations after they successfully improved their compliance with the political criteria. But their EU membership is still far away, and they need to confront major challenges. The goal of this paper is to analyze the level of community security by looking at the influence of identity politics in both the internal political life of Bosnia and the European Union's state-building strategy during Ursula von der Leyen's Commission. This paper answers the question of a new Dayton Agreement to be worked upon by the political leadership from BiH and together with the European incentives. By looking at the rhetoric of several levels of leadership in both national and European dimensions, this paper outlines the impact of ethnic discrimination as the key factor that affects the European integration process. As a result, it could be argued that if BiH wants to achieve membership, it clearly needs to create a new constitutional framework that goes beyond ethnic narratives, reduces the interests of political elites, and needs the support of actors such as the High Representative.
The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic has brought about a significant impact on all aspects of life, including the media industry. This work focused on South-East Nigeria newspapers’ readers’ perception of the Covid-19 pandemic, based on the coverage by The Guardian, Vanguard, and The Sun newspapers. The period under study in the research was from January 2020 to September 2020, The main objective was to find out how readers of newspapers in South-East, Nigeria perceived the news and the effects of the virus. A wide range of conceptual and empirical literature was reviewed with the social cognitive theory and media framing
theory used as anchorage to the study. The survey research design was used. The population of the study was 667, 500 while the sample size was 384. The study revealed the high rate of respondents’ frequency of exposure to Covid-19 reports in the selected newspapers. The result also showed that the newspapers’ readers had a generally high level of understanding of the Covid-19 pandemic. Additionally, it was discovered that the extent newspapers reported the pandemic helped inform the readers about the disease and how to prevent its spread. Amongst others, it was recommended that the Nigerian government and media organisations
should intensify their efforts towards educating the public on the pandemic, its prevention, and management.
Armed conflicts have always attracted the attention of the media. Over the decades, the desirability of media coverage, along with the instruments, has evolved. Media coverage of the Russian aggression against Ukraine in the early months set the agenda of most of the world's media, constituting the central point of the media discourse. After a year of war, there is a clear “fatigue” with information about the conflict, which translates into a decrease in media coverage in the evening news services of the Polish media. During an armed conflict, the media perform not only basic autotelic functions, but also play the role of bridge builders or an early warning system. Despite a clear decline in trust in traditional media, in times of crisis, they are mostly the first source of information. This chapter tries a synthetic analysis of the specificity of media coverage of the war in Ukraine from the perspective of Poland—as a frontline state strongly involved in helping Ukraine.
Based on extended interviews conducted from the Pakistani countryside to Washington, AP Foreign Correspondents in Action: World War II to the Present reveals for the first time what it takes to get the stories that brought the world home to America. It gives new front-line insights into major events from the Japanese surrender in 1945 to the 2010s Syrian civil war, and it helps to understand news impact on international affairs through evolving journalistic practices. Both successes and failures through eight decades of foreign correspondence from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe show that public discourse has been best served by correspondents who, at great risk, challenged accepted narratives, exposed omnipresent lies, gave a voice to the voiceless, and stymied the frequently violent efforts of those who feared truth-telling eyewitnesses.
We live in an age of conflicts: Following data by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, the number of violent conflicts reached a peak after the year 2014 that was only matched by the early 1990s and resulted in a total number of 160 different conflicts in 2018. The analysis of how these conflicts are covered draws its relevance from the fact that conflict is often mediated since most wars take place outside of people’s direct sphere of experience. Consequentially, war coverage can influence the perceived relevance of a conflict, the predominant interpretation of conflict events, the public’s attribution of conflict roles (e.g. victim, perpetrator or hero) and the public support for conflict interventions. Content analytical research on war coverage mostly focuses on two main research interests. They either analyze (1) how independent the media is from political influences or they examine (2) how (different types of) media cover conflicts.
International news plays an important role in shaping public opinion about the foreign policy and leadership of a country. Yet research shows that the bias in favor of the current political leadership is prevalent in foreign news coverage. In this study, we explore whether these assumptions hold in the case of digital news outlets in media systems outside of established democracies. We examine the representations of Russia in digital news streams of Kazakhstan and Ukraine based on a collection of news published by about 30 top news websites in each of the countries during 2018 (n = 2,339,583 news items). To study the coverage of Russia, we follow an approach combining topic modeling for extraction of news agendas and qualitative analysis of news framing. Then, we compare Kazakhstani and Ukrainian news agendas and their framing. The results suggest that digital news media in the selected cases follow expectations based on the research of offline media despite the transformations that happened in news production with the advance of the Internet.
Проявления политической пристрастности в освещении политических событий за рубежом, несмотря на большой объем исследований, слабо изучены в двух аспектах. Во-первых, не изучается, как это освещение может быть связано с наличием конфликта между страной, чьи СМИ анализируются, и освещаемой страной в сравнении с бесконфликтными конфигурациями. Во-вторых, пристрастность, или систематическое смещение (bias) обычно рассматривается как атрибут всей медиасистемы страны, без попыток изучить дифференциацию освещения разными типами СМИ. Чтобы частично закрыть эти лакуны, мы изучили, как фреймирование новостей о выборах в стране, которая находится с Россией в бесконфликтных отношениях (Казахстан), и в стране, чьи отношения с Россией конфликтны (Украина), различается в российских медиа разных типов: подконтрольных государству, оппозиционно-либеральных и нейтральных. Для этого были отобраны 30 популярных российских интернет-изданий, разделенных экспертами на три перечисленных типа. Из сплошной выборки новостей этих СМИ были отобраны 792 новости о выборах в Украине и Казахстане, принадлежащие трем типам СМИ в равных пропорциях, и размечены по трем видам медиафреймов: провластному, либеральному и нейтральному. Преобладание одного из полярных фреймов в СМИ расценивалось как наличие систематического смещения. Исследование показало, что провластное смещение наблюдается только в одной, хотя и преобладающей группе СМИ – подконтрольной. В остальных группах распространен нейтральный фрейм, что говорит о доступе заметной части российской аудитории к отличным от провластного способам освещения зарубежных событий. Однако при этом в освещении Украины распределение долей всех трех фреймов по трем типам СМИ смещено в провластную сторону по сравнению с освещением Казахстана. Одновременно оказалось, что тексты оппозиционных СМИ о Казахстане – единственная группа новостей, где наблюдается либеральное смещение. Таким образом, освещение бесконфликтной страны оказывается более поляризованным, чем освещение страны, с которой есть конфликт, чему в статье дается ряд интерпретаций.
Bu makale, genelde teorik bağlamda olmak üzere, demokrasi, medya ve siyaset ile
ilgili tartışmalara yoğunlaşmaktadır. Demokrasi, medya ve siyaset ve medyanın
demokrasi ile ilişkisine dair yaklaşımlara ait genel bir değerlendirme sunduktan
sonra, çalışma, bu ilişkinin genel görünümünü ve demokratik gelişimde medyanın
nasıl işlemesi gerektiğini göstermeye çalışmaktadır. Makalenin sonunda, yine daha
net bir bakış açısına sahip olmak için, haber hikayelerinin üretilmesi süreci; gündem
oluşturma, kamuoyu yaratma ve siyasal yaklaşım inşa etme unsur olması açısından
ele alınmaktadır.
Burada, özellikle medya ve demokrasi arasındaki ilişki, medya kanallarının
demokrasinin daha iyi bir biçimde işlemesi için sahip oldukları öneme vurgu yapmak
için irdelenmiştir. Sosyal konsensüs ve gündem oluşturmanın temel aktörleri olması
açısından basın ve politika arasındaki bağ incelenirken, medyanın, kurumsal ve dış
faktörlerin de etkisiyle kamuoyu ve ideoloji oluşturmadaki rolü tartışılmış, böylece
Türkiye’deki medya ve demokrasi tartışmaları daha detaylı bir şekilde incelenmiş ve
siyaset ile ilişkisi değerlendirilmiştir.
In 2015, France passed legislation that greatly expanded the ability of the French government to collect and store personal data for use in counterterrorism investigations. This law, both in its history and in its provisions, has many similarities to the US PATRIOT Act. However, little is known about how the French surveillance law has been portrayed in the US media. The present paper is a content analysis of articles published in major US newspapers from May 2015 through August 2015, as this was the period of peak interest in the French surveillance law. Examination of Google trends related to the passing of the law is also included. Results indicate that most articles maintain a neutral tone when discussing either French or US surveillance law. However, articles with a critical tone nearly always appeared in a liberal newspaper. Public interest in the law peaked at the time the law was openly discussed, when it was passed, and when a major act of terrorism occurred in Paris. Other findings, their implications, and possibilities for future research are discussed.
U.S. MILITARY INTERVENTION IN THE POST-COLD WAR ERA: A CASE-STUDY ANALYSIS OF PRESIDENTIAL DECISION MAKING Dennis N. Ricci Doctoral Dissertation Department of Political Science University of Connecticut Storrs, CT ABSTRACT The primary focus of this study is to explain presidential decision making, specifically whether to intervene militarily or not in a given circumstance in the Post-Cold War era. First, we define military intervention as the deployment of troops and weaponry in active military engagement (not peacekeeping). The cases in which we are interested involve the actual or intended use of force (“boots on the ground”), in other words, not drone attacks or missile strikes. Thus, we substantially reduce the number of potential cases by excluding several limited uses of force against Iraq, Sudan, and Afghanistan in the 1990s. Given the absence of a countervailing force or major power to serve as deterrent, such as the Soviet enemy in the Cold War period, there are potentially two types of military interventions: (1) humanitarian intervention designed to stop potential genocide and other atrocities and (2) the pre-emptive reaction to terrorism or other threats, such as under the Bush Doctrine. Therefore, we need to understand the logic of unipolarity and how the hegemonic power can be drawn into actions, especially in the absence of a great power rival. The theoretical puzzle we seek to solve comprises the competing explanations for why a presidential administration will decide to intervene in one situation and not in another. This is the normative question on which we focus from the outset in order to solve the theoretical puzzle. Since both the situations and decision makers vary across cases, we need to know precisely what is driving the outcome. Therefore, our theoretical perspective and goal-driven research objective are focused on standardized, generalized questions: Why intervene? Why use force or not? Under what conditions or circumstances are intervention decisions made? Do outcomes depend primarily on presidents making decisions as the all-important dynamic versus other variables and different measurements as to what drives the “go” or “no-go” decisions? Our examination of the phenomena of interest will lead us to a generalized theory as well as a typology of military intervention in the post-Cold War era. KEY WORDS: International Relations, United States Foreign Policy, Presidential Decision Making, Military Intervention.
This book explores the moral complexity of statecraft in the context of decision-making on armed intervention in the post-Cold War era. This book adds to the debate on humanitarian intervention by analyzing the moral complexity of statecraft when confronted with situations of severe human rights violations. Through a comparative case study of President Bill Clinton administration's failure to intervene in the Rwanda genocide (1994), the George W. Bush administration's tepid response to the Darfur atrocities (2003-07), and the Barack Obama administration's leadership behind the limited U.N. intervention in Libya (2011), it explores the factors - domestic and international - that influence decision-making about humanitarian intervention. These cases show, not only how international moral concerns often compete with interest-based and domestic concerns, but how decision-makers are often confronted by competing moral imperatives. In such situations, it is often not clear which imperatives should be followed. In an increasingly interconnected world, this book examines how we expect state leaders to balance different moral responsibilities. This book will be of much interest to students of humanitarian intervention, the Responsibility to Protect, human rights, US foreign policy, African politics and IR in general.
This article deals with the social representation of incapacity in Israeli political culture by applying CDA (critical discourse analysis) to two outstanding cases of incapacity: permanent incapacity in the case of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as a result of illness and temporary incapacity in the case of President Moshe Katzav, following a police investigation. A social representation of incapacity in leading figures as seen in the headlines of Ha'aretz (an elite Israeli newspaper) was analysed, with the following results: a) in the case of Prime Minister Sharon, he is a warrior battling for his life, while his successors battle for governmental control and stability; b) in the case of President Katzav, he veers between attacker and attacked. The psycho-social analysis of the political-cultural scene indicates that these social representations provide a mechanism for maintaining stability and cushioning shocks while also disseminating a pronounced sense of confusion.
Whenever we turn our TV news channel on, we are likely to hear about an Iran-U.S. conflict. Images of the leaders of these two countries intimidating each other can be seen in news channels all over the world. When we are talking about Iran-U.S. international relations, most people think of the political relations which this study takes as intergovernmental rather than international relations. In this study, as we are Iranian and U.S. scholars, we tried a systematic review of studies focusing on perceptions the Iranian and American people have of each other. Our systematic review of studies reveals that, Americans have more negative perceptions of Iranians than the Iranians have of their American counterparts. Moreover, we discussed sources for these perceptions as well.
This chapter reviews the burgeoning number of studies seeking to explain what sets the media’s agenda, and integrates them within a power balance framework. The concept of power is used in a critical evaluation of the agenda-setting metaphor and its limitations when expanded to include influences on media content. The organizational perspective, taken by much “media sociology” research, has examined power relations within organizations. This approach restricts the power of journalists, who are viewed as constrained by bureaucratic structures. Alternatively, journalists may be viewed as agents of the organization’s power in their dealings with other institutions. These power relations between the media and sources can be examined at individual, organizational, and institutional levels and are discussed in terms of interdependency and symbiosis. A media organization may manifest its power through its ability to define a reality through reporting and structuring of information, in spite of efforts by involved sources to dictate a different reality. Other indicators of both source and media power are specified, and the implications of different balances of media-source power are discussed. Treating power as a series of changing relationships helps avoid the tendency to regard media or sources as inherently and statically powerful. The powerful can manipulate the media, but under some conditions media assert their own power and agenda.
This article argues that the problems identified in the literature on public choice should critically affect our research on public opinion and our understanding of the impact of public opinion on foreign policy. While a robust literature has emerged around social choice issues in political science, there has been remarkably little appreciation for these problems in the literature on public opinion in general and on public opinion and foreign policy in particular. The potential importance of social choice problems for understanding the nature and role of public opinion in foreign policy making is demonstrated through an examination of American public attitudes about military intervention abroad. In particular, drawing on several common descriptions of the underlying dimensionality of public attitudes on major foreign policy issues, it is shown that there may be important intransitivities in the ordering of public preferences at the aggregate level on policy choices such as those considered by American decision makers in the period leading up to the Gulf War. Without new approaches to public-opinion polling that take these problems into consideration, it will be difficult to make credible claims about the role of public opinion in theforeignpolicy process.
Structural-pluralism theory pertaining to differences in how metropolitan and small-town news media cover the news is used to frame a comparative analysis of source-quotation patterns by a small-town and a nearby big-city newspaper covering the same environmental conflict. Results suggest that some aspects of structural-pluralist theory may merit re-examination as the social structure of small towns undergoes change, meaning some community papers may perform more like their big-city counterparts for sustained periods of time.
This article is an exploratory analysis of the linguistic treatment of the Kosovo bombing and related events as reported in the major US media. It studies the national news reported by nine different news media during a one-week period, 22-28 April 1999. This was a period about midway through the NATO bombing activity in Kosovo.
This article details the results of a plausibility probe of a policy-media interaction model designed to identify instances of media influence. If sufficient evidence is found to support the model, it can be used as part of a wider study examining the impact of media coverage on decisions to intervene during humanitarian crisis, the so-called CNN effect. The model predicts media influence when policy is uncertain and media coverage is framed so as to be critical of government and empathizes with suffering people. In order to test the model, it is applied to two cases: US intervention in Bosnia in 1995 in order to defend the Gorazde `safe area' and Operation Allied Force in Kosovo in 1999. In the first case, the model highlights the impact of critical, empathizing media coverage and policy uncertainty in effecting the US decision to defend the Gorazde `safe area'. In the second case, the failure of critical newspaper coverage to change the Clinton Administration's air-war policy highlights the limits of media influence when there exists policy certainty. Overall, it is argued that the plausibility probe supports the prediction that media influence occurs when policy is uncertain and media coverage is critically framed and empathizes with suffering people. And that when policy is certain, media influence is unlikely to occur. As such, the policy-media interaction model should prove a useful tool in testing the claim that media coverage causes intervention during humanitarian crisis.
This article documents three types of media effects that operated on public opinion during the Persian Gulf crisis and war. First, the level of network news coverage matched the proportion of Gallup poll respondents naming the Gulf crisis as the nation's most important problem (agenda-setting). Second, use of data from the 1988, 1990, and 1991 National Election Studies (NES) shows that the weight respondents accorded foreign policy performance when evaluating George Bush significantly increased (priming) in the aftermath of the Gulf crisis. Third, content data (showing that network news coverage was preoccupied with military affairs and highly event oriented) and survey data are coupled to show that respondents reporting higher rates of exposure to television news expressed greater support for a military as opposed to a diplomatic response to the crisis (framing). In conclusion, it is suggested that these effects, in combination with the nature of the media's information sources, were conducive to legitimizing the administration's perspective on the crisis.
While audience research, particularly reception studies, has successfully furthered the diverse traditions from which it developed, there now seems to be some uncertainty about the way forward: audience research is at a crossroads. This article argues that the future agenda should not restrict itself to repeating the cultural studies 'canon' of reception research, but should strengthen external relations between audience research and other domains of media and cultural studies, challenging the 'implied audience' - the ways in which audiences are theorized outside audience theory — within the realms of political, policy, technological, economic and social theory. It is further proposed that by developing a multi-level conception of audiences that analytically links the macro and the micro, several existing problems facing reception studies - particularly concerning the nature of audience activity and resistance - may be addressed.
This article examines the implicit rules by which reporters determined the slant of news coverage of U.S. foreign policy crises from 1945 to 1991. The single most important rule was that reporters, as Lance Bennett has maintained, tended to “index” their coverage to reflect the range of views that exists within the government. A series of narrower and more situational rules also appeared to hold, such as a tendency of reporters to be more hawkish than official sources when the United States faced a communist foe and more dovish when the United States suffered a military setback.
Kuypers combines rhetorical theory and framing analysis in an examination of the interaction of the press and the president during international crisis situations in the post-Cold War world. Three crises are examined: Bosnia, Haiti, and the North Korean nuclear capability issue. Kuypers effectively demonstrates the changed nature of presidential crisis rhetoric since the end of the Cold War.
Kuypers employs a new historical/critical approach to analyze both the press and the Clinton administration's handling of three international crisis situations. Using case studies of Bosnia, Haiti, and the alleged North Korean nuclear buildup in 1993, he examines contemporary presidential crisis communication and the agenda-setting and agenda-extension functions of the press.
The importance of this study lies in its timeliness; President Clinton is the first atomic-age president not to have the Cold War meta-narrative to use in legitimating international crises. Prior studies in presidential crisis rhetoric found that the president received broad and consistent support during times of crisis. Kuypers found that the press often advanced an oppositional frame to that used by the Clinton administration. The press frames were found to limit the options of the President, even when the press supported a particular presidential strategy. This is a major study that will be of interest to scholars and researchers of the press, the modern presidency, and American foreign policy.
Beaudoin, C. E., & Thorson, E. (2002). Spiral of violence? Conflict and conflict resolution in international news. In E. Gilboa (Ed.), Media and conflict: Framing issues, making policy, shaping opinions (pp. 45-64). New York: Transnational Publishers.
Understanding the processes of influence in societies has intrigued generations of scholars. One method of studying such influence in modern democracy is to investigate mass media, public, and policy agendas, defined as issues or events that are viewed at a point in time as ranked in a hierarchy of importance. Research by communication scholars and other social scientists has typically conceptualized either the mass media agenda, the public agenda, or the policy agenda as a dependent variable in order to explain how it is influenced by other factors. This chapter (1) analyzes past research on agenda-setting in order to learn where this research literature is deficient and where it is sufficient and (2) synthesizes this research literature with a view toward learning important theoretical and methodological lessons for future agenda-setting research.
A new period of reevaluation, debate, and transition in American foreign policy occurred in the wake of the cold war. U.S. policy toward the 1991-95 Balkan war became a defining point in the new debate, as the question of how America should react to the crisis became entangled with issues of moral and prudential responsibilities and the very definition of U.S. national interests in the new international system. The unfolding of this debate suggested that new forms of traditional isolationism and internationalism still comprise the major poles of American thinking about foreign policy, but also presented an image of the new consensus that will likely dominate U.S. foreign relations in the next decade. Resulting in part from the contest over the Bosnian War, a broad understanding of the value of engagement in global security affairs has emerged to dominate official thinking about foreign policy. But that understanding is premised on the assumption that engagement must not come at a high cost, and must be built on the capacity of the United States to act unilaterally or even to retreat from international engagement in the future. America in the late 1990s is deeply involved in the security and economic affairs of the world, but its hesitancy to risk national sovereignty to use its power to strengthen the structures of world order may be laying the groundwork for unrestrained political, military, and economic turmoil in the years ahead, much as U.S. policy in the 1920s helped to allow the emergence of the foreign policy nightmares of the 1930s and 1940s.
Influencing the policy agenda has long been viewed as one of the most important sources of political I power. For decades, scholars have maintained that the president has the most significant role in setting the policymaking agenda in Washington, but little systematic empirical work has been done to measure the president's influence. We explore the president's success in focusing the issue attention of Congress and the mass media by evaluating time-series measures of presidential, mass media, and congressional attention to five issues: crime, education, health care, U.S.-Soviet relations, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. We find that most of the time the president reacts, responding primarily, to fluctuations in media attention and world events. in domestic policy, we find a more interactive relationship, one that appears to offer the president the opportunity to act in an entrepreneurial fashion to focus the attention of others ill the system on major presidential initiatives.
Because biased religion coverage in the elite press affects the sociopolitical role denominations play in society, a study of the 1977 coverage of denominations in the NEW YORK TIMES and the WASHINGTON POST was conducted. The results show that numerical biases were present: establishment denominations tended to receive inordinate coverage and prominent placement, while evangelical groups were slighted. The numerical biases probably resulted to a large degree from the issues which were reported most often.
Some of the architects of NATO's victory in Kosovo have been quick to hail it as a harbinger of a new type of humanitarian intervention-an effective and relatively painfree way to stop ethnic cleansing in its tracks. But a closer look at the conflict reaffirms old truths rather than offering new lessons.
Public opinion is increasingly being considered an important factor in foreign policy decisions. This article thus examines what sources of information foreign policy officials actually use to represent public opinion. A linkage model is hypothesized with communications between government and the public following five paths: elites, interest groups, the news media, elected officials, and the mass, or general, public. The data show that the elite and interest group paths are least used, paths based on the news media and elected officials are most used, with mass opinion sources of moderate importance. Further data show that the use of any one path depends to some extent upon the types of issues with which officials deal, and the institutional position and ideology of individual officials. Foreign policy officials are often skeptical about public opinion polls; however, in using their own alternative "operational" sources, such officials may be more receptive to public input than previously thought. The results of this study are compared with Bernard Cohen's The Public's Impact on Foreign Policy (1973). This comparison finds a significantly diminished use of elite sources to represent public opinion, most likely a result of officials' sense of the "lessons" of Vietnam.
War-ravaged Bosnia has come a long way since the 1995 Dayton Accord. But Bosnia's stability rests on the West's large-scale involvement. Integration remains an unfulfilled hope. When foreign aid tapers off, as it soon will, Bosnia's economy will grind to a halt without major reforms. The world should safeguard Dayton's biggest success--ending Europe's bloodiest war since World War II--but hand Bosnia's political and economic future back to Bosnians.
Although much less frequent and much changed in character, war is still considered to be the ultimum remedium in international affairs. Warfare is not possible, however, when taxpayers are not willing to foot the bill for maintaining armies, and people (men in particular) are not prepared on a large scale to risk their own lives as well as to kill unknown others on command. The public is always involved in wars-their preparation, conduct, or prevention-in one way or another, as participants or observers. That fact makes public opinion a major factor in understanding foreign policy and international politics.
For years, communications analysts and other social scientists have explored the impact of the mass media on public opinion. Other political scientists have examined concurrently the public opinion—foreign policy linkage. This article unites these distinct literatures in an attempt to understand the relationship between the mass media, public opinion, and U.S. foreign policy. Theories and research are classified according to the particular “flow of influence” among the three variables. This classification scheme will assist scholars and practitioners in understanding the complex nature of the public's impact on the U.S. foreign policy-making process.
In this study, nearly 9,000 news paragraphs concerning the military conflicts in Bosnia and Somalia were coded for a series of variables. The use of anonymous attribution varied significantly in Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post content. In addition to providing valuable information about the use of sources, the study also contributes to communication methodology by using logistic regression analysis to test the effects of four predictor variables on an ordinal-level response variable. Scholars who examine source attribution in Western newspapers are encouraged to use the method in future analyses.
The Bosnian civil war offers an opportunity to examine the American public's attitudes toward foreign policy problems in the post-cold war era. We use polls conducted for the Times Mirror/Pew Research Center for the People and the Press from 1992 to 1996 and indicators of media coverage of Bosnia to analyze trends in public attention to and knowledge of the conflict. As expected, events, media coverage, public attention to that coverage, and knowledge of the conflict are related. Knowledge rises over time, but the increase is greatest among the most educated. Greater knowledge also produced differing policy preferences. The more knowledgeable Americans were, the more they sympathized with the Bosnian Muslims. The relationship between knowledge and support for more aggressive U.S. options, however, was mixed. The data on Bosnia suggest that the public can become interested in foreign policy in the post-cold war era, but we cannot predict the duration of that interest.
As traditional institutions have weakened, the news media have been expected to carry more of the burden of organizing public opinion and debate. In general, however, the news agenda is an unsuitable basis for political action. There are always critical problems facing society, but whether they play a large or small part in the news, and do so in a true or distorted form, depends significantly on how they conform to the time-driven demands of the news cycle. The news is deliberately shortsighted, is rooted in novelty rather than precision, and focuses on fastbreaking events rather than enduring issues.
This research note deals with the role of the media in assigning legitimacy to Germany's first participation in military action since the end of the Second World War. A content analysis of the war discourse in the editorials of the five leading German newspapers investigates the range of evaluations of the Kosovo war. Employing the concept of framing, a variety of competing diagnostic, prognostic and identity-related interpretations were identified. Controversial debate emerged around the procedural aspects of warfare. While the conservative papers emphasized the military options, the liberal papers directed attention to humanitarian and diplomatic efforts. Yet, the legitimacy of the war was hardly contested in any of the national prestige papers. These findings support the basic assumptions of the indexing thesis since the high degree of consent in the media system reflects the lack of substantial conflict in the German party system.
Since its eruption in December 1987, the Intifada has been accorded considerable press attention. In the study reported here we show that in this crisis journalism tends to articulate mainstream ideology, rather than energize public awareness about the importance of its events. Two Israeli daily newspapers are studied, one `quality' paper, catering to a highly educated audience, and the other, a `popular' paper, with the largest readership in the country. Contrary to expectations, the differences in the Intifada coverage of the two Hebrew dailies seem to be rather meagre. It is argued that consensus and widely shared national ideology override professional norms and practices, so that differences in narrative structure and rhetorical strategies are minimized. The major crisis, threatening the coexistence of Israelis and Palestinians, is similarly presented in the otherwise distinctively different papers, in what amounts to a general tone of `playing it down'. A `rhetoric of conformity' in both papers suggests a clear preference to `our' point of view, expressing a perceived consensus, and at the same time contributing to its maintenance.
We administered the Knowledge of Memory Aging Questionnaire (KMAQ; Cherry, West, Reese, Santa Maria, & Yassuda, in press) to a large sample of younger and older adults. The KMAQ is a 28-item true/false measure that covers a broad range of topics related to normal memory aging (due to maturational processes) and pathological memory aging (due to brain trauma or disease states). Results yielded an age effect favoring the older adults. Both age groups were more accurate on pathological than normal memory aging items. Follow-up analyses confirmed both similarities and differences in the age groups' knowledge of specific topics related to normal and pathological memory aging. Implications for research and the design of educational programs for younger and older adults are discussed.
This article examines relationships between media content, public opinion, and foreign policy in the United States and the United Kingdom. The investigation proceeds in two stages. First, an agenda-setting analysis demonstrates a strong connection between the salience of foreign affairs in the media and the salience of foreign affairs for the public. Second, two potential effects of varying issue salience on foreign policymaking are examined: (1) issue priming and (2) policymakers’ reactions to issue salience. Analyses rely on a combination of U.S. and U.K. commercial polling data and the American National Election Study. Results point to the importance of mass media and issue salience in the relationship between public opinion and foreign policy.