The Policy-Media Interaction Model: Measuring Media Power during Humanitarian Crisis

Abstract

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.

Framing international conflicts:Media coverage of fighting in the Middle East

“…Some research shows government officials using their role as news sources to promote foreign policy through media reports (Peake 2001) and 'perceive the media as too subservient to government' (Entman 2004: 4). Others posit that the media's ability to affect foreign policy depends on how divided political decision-makers are on particular issues (Hallin 1984;Robinson 2000). However, a growing body of research asserts that since the end of the Cold War the balance between government and the media has shifted (Entman 2004) and that the media is now one of the most important influences on foreign policy (Edwards and Wood 1999;Robinson 2002;Soroka 2003;Wood and Peake 1998).…”

Critical discourse analysis of the Iraq conflict in the British and German 'quality' press

“…the 'indexing hypothesis' after Bennett, 1990; cf. the 'policy action model' after Robinson, 2000). Counter views to the papers' policy lines are usually presented in such a way that they somehow appear to be deviant.…”

Media Power and the Transformation of War

“…Herman and Paterson (2000), for example, point out that no CNN Effect has occurred since CNN sold NATO's war globally. Moreover, Robinson (2000b) applies his Media-Politics Interaction Model to the Kosovo example in order to prove that media coverage of refugees did not succeed in forcing the Clinton administration to use ground troops, because the policy line that the air attacks were working and that there was no intention of launching a ground invasion was stated consistently. The distance between Bahador and the rest of the literature can be explained by noticing that while Bahador's findings are drawn from the analysis of the crisis preceding NATO's intervention, all others concentrate on the strikes only.…”