Military Intervention: Mass Media

Mass Media, more aptly referred to as modern media - inclusive of social media and the internet, are important factors in the development of foreign policy, mainly because of its influence on public opinion. According to Stolberg (2012), modern culture in the US is bombarded by 24/7 news feeds, social networking apps on status updates, mobile phones and visual imagery on huge digital billboards on buildings and highways making modern media an unavoidable force. The media matters in the early facets of the policy construction process. It possesses the power to influence agendas - which are subsequently adopted by politicians, lobbyists and other key actors (Shah, 2012). During the research stage of this thesis, the researcher examined various

Therefore for this section there will be a repetition of materials used before. However, there were some relatively new sources that aided in the information gathering process in this section. One of the most useful articles is a research paper that was written by Steven Livingston during his fellowship studies at Harvard University in 2007, “Clarifying the CNN effect: An Examination of Media Effects According to Type of Military Intervention”. As the title suggests this paper looks in detail at the effect according to military intervention providing a valuable source of reference for this

Military intervention and the media”by Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer. Jeangène Vilmer’s article considers the effect of the media on military response and operations at the operational level and how has the media shaped foreign policy and foreign policy support. According to Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer (2012), the CNN effect encourages politicians to make a decision, which in itself may be considered a good thing, but in doing so it may also have the perverse effect of pushing them to proceed quickly – to make this decision too quickly, without the taking time to think, which, in matters as serious as a military intervention, is a necessity. In other words, it may – and it has – a negative effect on the long-term development of foreign policy, which, because of the CNN effect, increasingly boils down to national policy. In addition this excerpt highlighted that the influence of the media depends on the way in which the event is covered, the author explains that a situation or crisis can be blown out of proportion depending on how it is captioned and captured. By highlighting the role and the impact of the media (CNN effect), the author gave the researcher adequate information to answer the final secondary question on the