Regional Interests, Public Opinion, and Media

Week 8

Regional Interests and foreign policy-1

• Regionally based political competition and conflict is one of the most distinctive features of American politics.

• Regionalism in American politics is rooted in the geographically even nature of economic growth and development.

• While ethnic and religious difference is also an important feature, political conflicts are grounded in conflicts of (regional) economic interest.

Regional Interests and foreign policy-2

• When political parties have been rooted in sections of the country with significantly different economic interests, domestic competition over public policy has intensified (i.e. ‘Red America vs. ‘Blue America’).

• Regions that stand to benefit, politically as well as economically, from the projections of American power are likely to support more ambitious, expansionist foreign policies.

• Those regions’ income/profit/political standing depend on the home market or are threatened by international competition, are less likely to support internationalism.

Regional Debates over FP

1) The Great Debate over expansionism in the

1890s.

2) The Struggle over Internationalism in the

1930s.

3) American primacy and the ‘new sectionalism’

in the 2000s.

1) The great debate over expansionism in the late 19th cent.

• The Republican North-East and the Democratic South’s ‘great debate’ over expansionism. In between lay ‘the swing region’, the West.

• The critical issues of naval spending, territorial expansion, and tariff reform were debated in term of their impact on each region’s overseas commercial interests.

• In the battle between the North and the South, the key to success lay in political alliance with the West.

• Recognizing this, northern Republicans fashioned a FP to capture western support for their expansionist cause.

2)The Struggle over internationalism in 1930s

• Whether or not America should assume an active role in rebuilding the world

economy and checking the spread of fascism in Europe and Asia.

• İnternationalist from the urban North-East ( the manifacturing/rust belt) and the

agrarian South favored active American international leadership.

• Because this coalition included Republicans as well as Democrats, it overwhelmed

nationalist opposition in the West ( favoring isolationism ) and formed the

foundation of the Cold War consensus to come.

• In the 1930s as in other periods of American foreign policy, politicians from

different parts of the country sought to equate regional interests with the national

interests.

• Foreign policy issues were debated in terms of their immediate impact on regional

prosperity and their longer-range regional political and economic consequences.

3) American Primacy and the “New Sectionalism” in 2000s

• Republicans and Democrats are more divided over FP matters than any

time since the Second World War ( or the Cold War consensus).

• Partisan differences are again running along regional lines, with the so-

called 'red states' of the South and Mountain West on one side and the

'blue' states of the North-East and Pacific Coast on the other side.

• Politicians from Red America champion foreign policies that put a

premium on American power. Those who hail from Blue America favor

greater reliance on international institutions and multilateral diplomacy.

• These divisions hardened during George W.Bush's presidency but the

process of regional restructuring that gave rise to them began before the

Bush administration took office in 2001.

Media and Public Opinion on FP• Political communication focuses upon the

analysis of mainstream media outlets such as television newspapers.

• As a whole, US mainstream media are expected to provide US citizens with full range of relevant viewpoints and opinions.

• The US citizens are often categorized as either isolationist or internationalist.

Liberal Perspective/Pluralist Model

• The liberal-democratic perspective maintains that

public opinion and media should infuence fp.

• The pluralist model argues that the public is

capable of both rationally assessing foreign policy

and influencing foreign policy.

• The pluralist model puts media have a significant

impact upon foreign policy formulation.

Types Media Effect

1) CNN Effect

2) An accelerant effect

3) An enabling effect

4) An impediment effect

1) CNN Effect • Occurs when media coverage plays a

direct role in causing policy makers to adopt a particular policy.

• Assumption is that without media pressure, the policy would not have been adopted.(i.e. emotive images in a civil war).

• In academia, media influence is generally used synonymy with CNN effect.

2)Accelerant Effect

• The decision-making process is speeded up by media attention.

• Not entail media causing a particularly policy outcome; rather policy makers respond more quickly to a particular issue. (media attention to humanitarian crises)

3) Enabling Effect • Media can enable policy makers to pursue a

policy by building public support for that policy. (i.e.communicating 9/11 attacks to American public in a horrific real-time reporting).

• The attacks and their mass-mediated nature help to build a consistency amongst US citizens for a more interventionist foreign policy/war on terror.

4) An Impediment Effect • Linked to ` Vietnam Syndrome` • Fear over negative coverage of US casualties

and its impact on public opinion that constraints policy makers and prevents them pursuing a policy.

• For inst., the Clinton administration’s decision for limited military engagement to Serbian crisis in 1999.

• Libya ? Syria ?

Realist/critical perspectives & the elite model

• The realist perspective argues that media and public opinion should not influence foreign policy.

• Almond-Lippman Consensus: Public opinion both irrational and possessing little influence.

• While the realist pespective highlights the inadequacy of public knowledge and understanding, critical accounts point toward how public knowledge and understanding are shaped by mainsteam media.

How media shapes public knowledge/understanding ?

1)Priming: Abililty to direct public to the issues upon

which they should judge their leaders.

2)Framing: The presentation of news information helps

to shape how people think about sprecific issues.

3)Agenda-Setting: Setting the agenda and directing

the public as to what was the most important issue to

think about.

Hugo Chavez Rips Into Fox News !!

Hugo Chavez Rips Into Fox News !! - YouTube.url

CNN fake video of front line in Libya

CNN fake video of front line in Libya. This is some funny ass sht - YouTube.url

The Elite Model

• Public is ignorant of international affairs and have little influence.

• Media mobilize support for government policies.

• At the core of elite accounts of mainstream US media lies the claim that the media agenda, and the framing of issues, is usually highly compatible with the agenda and perspective of US political and social elites.

Sphere of concensus, controversy, and deviance (D.Hallin,1986)

Manifactured consentThe media serves as a system for communicating messages and symbols to the general populance. It is their function to amuse, entertain, and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behaviour that will integrate them into the instiutional structures of the larger society. In a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest, to fulfil this role requires systematic propoganda [to mobilize public support for elite policy preferences.]

5 Filters of Propaganda Model

1) Size,ownership and profit orientation

2) Reliance on advertising revenue

3) Rely heavily on official sources

4) Caution to air ‘controversial’ material.

5) Importance of ideology

Main Claim

The mainstream US media perpetuate an image

of the United States as inherently benign,

peaceful, and committed to high moral standards

when,in fact, its foreign policies are riddled with

self-interested economic and political objectives

that often lead the USA to support violent and

illiberal policies.

Wag the Dog - Movie Trailer - YouTube.url

Public/Media Diplomacy • Soft power refers to the power of influencing

international affairs via persuasion. • The US governments devote considerable

resources to the projection of soft power through 'public diplomacy'.

• Soft power is projected through the promotion of US culture and values, in part, to non-US publics and global media.

• At a time of digital age with variety of communication channels (i.e google,facebook,twitter , Al-Jazeera) the question of whether traditional patters of media-PO-state relations have been dramatically transformed.

Public Diplomacy 2.0

Public Diplomacy 2 0 Jim Glassman - YouTube.url

Thanks