Influence of Media and Public Opinion on Global Politics - Essay Example

Influence of media and public opinion on global politics Introduction The WWII led to the creation of a true international system for the first time,wherein, events occurring in one part of the world were affecting events on another part, therefore leading to increasing interest among various states (both, the involved and non-involved actors in the war). During early 1980s, new and innovative technology within communications led to the emergence of a first worldwide-based news network in the form of CNN were new was broadcasted globally 24 hours round the clock using cable networks and satellite connections (Whittemore, 1990). In the Gulf war that occurred during the early 1990s, CNN played a major role within the realms of international relationships, and its coverage led to the entry of other broadcasting networks, such as BBC, in the arena of worldwide television networks. After its success during the Gulf War, CNN soon diversified into global services and a new branch, CNN International that started influencing many aspects, such as, international relationships, foreign policies, economics, politics, public opinion, and global communications. In the last one decade, it has become necessary to understand the link that exists between mass media and global politics owing to increased globalisation and advanced communication technology. Various experts have persistently highlighted the increasing power of mass media, stating that they have the power to dislodge or disturb political orders in power (Cohen, 1994). There are increasing number of debates and growing concern over the so-called ‘CNN effect’ referring to the ability of mass media to drive intervention from the developed nations, in various conflicts and crises in the developing countries. While there are doubts on the actual impact of the ‘CNN effect,’ the political leaders continue placing great deal of importance to the mass media, in the context of shaping foreign policies in regard to dealing with humanitarian crises in other parts of the world (Strobel, 1997). On the other hand, various other experts and many of the media theories contend that mass media lack the power to influence or dictate policy-making, while according to the theory of ‘manufacturing consent,’ mass media works towards garnering support for policy chances made by the ruling elite class (Hammond and Herman, 2000). However, according to many mainstream writers, such as, Daniel Hallin, media has very little power to influence foreign policy choices made by the ruling elite classes (Bennett, Lawrence, and Livingston, 2007). While effects of mass media has been researched and studied by the experts to some extent, the effect of public opinion remains an area that remains largely unexplored. While the roots of our understanding of public opinion and its impact on governmental policies can be traced back to the eighteenth century democratic theories, with links that go back to ancient Greek philosophies (Palmer, 1936). Despite the long history, the relationship between empirical studies on public opinion and its effect on political decision-making remains vague, due to lack of researches in the subject. It is only very recently that public opinion experts have taken up the work of combining the theoretical models with empirical figures derived from various surveys and reviews to bring about logical conclusion on the topic (Althaus, 2006). This essay will explore some of the basic links that exist between democratic theories and public opinion researches, illustrating the relationship between citizens, public opinion and governmental decision. The essay also explores current conceptual understanding of the relationship between mass media and the State while discussing theories which create better scope for analysing the significance and role of media in determining and shaping political policy-framing outcomes. Discussion The link between democracy and public opinion The term ‘public opinion’ as a theory came into existence during the Enlightenment era; however, separately the two words, ‘public’ and ‘opinion’ have been in use for a long time, each having its own set of meanings that are still in use, in the current post-modern context. The term opinion has two sets of meanings that can be used in two different ways. From one perspective, opinion relates to a rather inferior learning process, differentiating a judgment from known facts. In another way, the term was used for showing honour or esteem towards someone. While both are based on ideas of judgment, in one the focus is on the so-called truth-value of believed facts and in the other, focus is on the moral value of the judgment, such as, sanction or disapproval. A study of the various political theories show that term has been used variously, wherein at times denoting awareness and learning, while at other times denoting moral values. The word public (meaning ‘the people,’ in Latin) also had varying meaning in different contexts ranging from places with access to all people, to denoting common interest for all the people, and the king as per notions of absolutism, represented all his citizens, hence could be termed as ‘public’ (Baker, 1990). The term ‘public opinion’ came into vogue during the eighteenth century as result of different social trends, such as, the spread of education, start of printing press owing to which greater circulation of books and articles, emergence of the trader class, and the rise of Reformation movement. Despite the term being in circulation from the 18th century, it took its contemporary shape much later in the writings of utilitarian thinkers that dealt with liberalism. The notions of public opinion became an integral part of the Enlightenment era to get rid of imperialism and to replace them with democracies. Therefore, concepts of public opinion vary from highly community-oriented equations of a free moving, mixed group of citizens working towards achieving the best for the entire community, to individualism wherein a group of citizens follow their own interests and then by majority voting gather those interests to elect their political rulers. From the twentieth-century models, that are primarily based on liberal notions the various theories that explain concept of public opinion and its effect on policy framing are: legal democracy, neo-pluralism, participatory democracy and competitive elitism (Held, 1996). Concerns over irrationality and insensibility of the public or citizens, and a seemingly lack of faith in their capability to understand and frame various policies, were seen in some of work of the democratic theorists. Such thinkers felt that working according to public would lead to inefficiencies and an unstable government, especially during socio-political disturbances. Schumpeter (1942) contended that specialists within the bureaucracy are necessary to help the political leaders in framing and implementing logical public policies, and public opinion on matters of policy framing should kept at a minimum. Furthermore, he suggested that within the realms of competitive elitism or leadership democracy, public opinion should remain limited to the election of appropriate leaders who should be responsible for framing and implementing public policies. Lippmann (1922) in his writings went a step ahead to suggest that specialists within the bureaucracy having all information should present unknown facts in a manner that is logical to decisions makers while arranging to display so-called ‘public opinion’ for the benefit of citizens and mass media. However, such minimalist notions of public opinions and democracy is equivalent to a situation where a state that elections, while maintaining significant gap between the ruling elites that make decisions and the will of the citizens. Pluralism, which became popular in the US during the 1960s, supported the minimalists’ notions, while placing importance on the roles by the quasi-elites and other intercessor groups for maintaining a balance between power and citizens’ rights, and establishing a strong link between popular demands and political decisions (Smith, 1987; Nacos, Shapiro, and Insernia, 2000). However, pluralist theories of desegregated and equally distributed power within citizens and elites faced challenges. Many experts contended that the model more or less described Western political orders giving it the status of a normative theory. Pateman (1970) contended that knowledge, socio-political resources, and efficiency, are so unevenly found within any population that it is almost impossible to use them to the state’s benefit. While liberal theories conceptualise that citizens are free and possess equal rights fail to match with actual socio-economic gap that effectively subverts all assumptions of equal rights. According to the definition of true democracy, there must not be any such differences, while active participation from all community members is essential for the functioning of all democratic institutions, which must be made transparent and accountable. On the other hand, participatory democratic advocates contend based on the communitarian theories of Rousseau that political freedom arises from group involvement in political debates and activities, in order to counter anti-citizens’ rights arguments by Lippman, Dewey in 1927, suggested that it is necessary to focus on discussion, debates, and inducement among citizens and elites for true democracy. However, in this context, many experts feel that mass media has the capacity to change politics into a game and opinion polls, for all their democratic objectives, merely serve to supplement biased opinions that are not based on any meaningful discussions or debate (Entman, 2004). Therefore, what emerges is a community that takes in political opinions spread tactically by the elites using the mass media, instead of being an independent body that logically derives its own view through debates and discussions. The public is then turned into an audience gathered around what turns into a mere political spectacle (Entman, 2004). There is another theory that advocate legal democracy for policy framing, where state activities to remove social disparities tend to be coercive and there are chances of citizens losing their personal freedom (Hayek, 1979). Here the main point within democracy is the safeguarding of individual rights and liberties, and with an expansive state having greater bureaucratic and legislative reach, the dangers to individual freedom remain high. Therefore, to counter the dominative State powers there must be a strong rule of law. According to the legal democrats the best way to achieve collective choice necessary for a truly free community, is the concept of free-market, which works best when not met with governmental intervention (Friedman, 1962). Therefore the current models of post-modern democracy that explains relationships between public opinion and policy framing, while moving away from the traditional theories, continue to integrate notions from century old theories of individualism to communitarianism that explore public opinion and its effect on governmental activities. However, these theories need to be backed with more empirical evidences and further researches into the subject. Effects of media on policy framing Various researches over the last three decades hold that economic and political viewpoints of the powerful media houses tend to create a situation where the disseminated news presents the perspective of the more dominating group. Thus, the current literature highlights the fact that a State government has the power to influence news being disseminated, while the journalists tend to view and present events through the socio-political prisms of the elites of their choice. More popularly known as ‘manufacturing consent,’ this theorises the fact that media coverage remains ‘indexed’ with the ruling elites receiving empirical support (Chomsky and Herman, 1988; Bennett, 1990). There are two notions that function under the theory of manufacturing consent, which are, an elite version and the other being an executive version. In the executive version it is claimed that the degree to which news media agrees with the agendas of government officials wherein the latter are viewed as executive members (Chomsky and Herman, 1988). This is evident in the different in analyses of the US media representation of the Iran Air and Korean Airline shoot downs of the 1980s. The two shoot downs were similar in nature and resulted due to wrong decisions by the army, which led to large-scale loss of property and death of more than five hundred people. Instead of reporting the truth, the US media reported that the Iran Air shoot down, that occurred due to wrong judgment of the US army, as an issue of technical failure. On the other hand, the USSR army was responsible for the Korean Airline shoot down, and the incident was presented as morally wrong, in order to create public outrage. As Entman (2004) stated, it was quite clear that the US media played as per the US administrative policy interests, and while the Korean airlines mishap receive high coverage, the Iran Air incident was downplayed and did not receive much scrutiny. More significantly, as per the executive version, media fails to go against or even criticise the executive policy framework. According to this version therefore there is a strong allegiance between media presentation and interests of the executive policies thus blocking any influence of the media on policy framing processes. According to the elite version that news media takes care of the interests of all political elites within a community (Bennett, 1990). According to various studies that deal with elite consent, it is claimed that during the Vietnam War, the US media was apparently antagonistic to the US policy, leading to major damage to the US image back home (Hallin, 1986). Further reports showed that at that time significant news coverage started only after some of the American political elite turned hostile towards the war (Hallin, 1986). Therefore, what appeared as strong influence of the media on governmental policies was actually a situation where the political elites were divided on the nature of coverage of the war news, leading to the apparently antagonistic media coverage. Based on these studies, Hallin derived three aspects, one of agreement, one of approved controversy and the third aspect of non-conformation and these are present irrespective of any given political situation. He contended that news coverage that is according to the directives of the political elites, fails to touch the non-conformation aspect, and remains limited within ‘agreement’ with the elites, or presents an issue that has ‘approved’ controversy, as desired by the elites (Hallin, 1986). Furthermore, there are claims that mass media remains highly indexed as per the drift within the government and this is evident in the fact news coverage challenging or even criticising governmental policies takes place only when the elites disapprove the policy (Bennett, 1990). Therefore, here unlike the executive version, critical form of media coverage is given a scope, even though it remains under governmental directives. Therefore, one can derive that media can influence policy framing where there are issues of elite conflict over a policy. In this context up Mermin (1999), studied the Somalian intervention by the US in 1992, and fond that news coverage simply followed the calls by the elite to act in Somalia, and news on Somalia sprang into life soon after the elite demands for US intervention. While the reporters took the decision of covering the war in Somalia, it was only after the US government set the stage. Therefore, the US intervention in Somalia clearly depicts control of the ruling elites over the mass media. However, manufacturing consent theory has two major limitations. The theory is entrenched in comprehending the link between political heads and journalists. It has been claimed that media in general remains neutral and has no influence, while confirming to the elite dictates, as was seen during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. While the theory explains Somalian intervention, it fails to explain why media did not support the Rwandan intervention. The second limitation to the theory is related to the hypothesis that journalists while disseminating elite opinions, fail to play an independent role at the time of elite conflicts. While undoubtedly, journalists face political pressures and lack freedom while serving news to the citizens, it cannot be assumed that journalists absolutely have no independent part to play. There is always the chance that journalists could take sides, especially during elite controversies over framing of policies, hence giving them a scope to play powerful roles within political debates. As a contrast to the manufacturing consent theory, the political contest model as framed by Wolfsfeld (2004) holds that media can influence public policies and there are struggles amongst various actors and other sources to enter the process of news creation. The powers of actors are derived from their political stronghold and their ability to advocate interpretations that match the wider political scenario. The non-elite groups are the opposition members that can frame news agenda while also influencing political results. In this context it can said that the Israeli government lost its control over mass media agenda primarily the political environment went out their control, while internationalising the Palestinians’ fight for freedom brought about a power balance between them (the challengers) and the Israeli government (the elites). Furthermore, providing access to areas of direct conflict to all the journalists led to the casting of Israelis in a poor light in the global arena (Wolfsfeld, 2004). This theory thus supports the fact the media coverage has the potential to influence the process of policy framing by the elites. Conclusion The Wolfsfeld’s political contest model and the manufacturing consent theory provide us with theories that can help to analyse under what circumstances the mass media can play important roles in framing of governmental policies. While both the models are based on well-established theories of the media–state, they both fail to provide comprehensive analyses of media effects on policy framing, especially in the context of current globalisation. While manufacturing consent theory explains to a certain extent the Vietnam War episode, it fails to give a reason for the same media’s failure to cover Rwandan genocide. On the other hand, Wolfsfeld’s analysis that allows for media influence is likely to take place less often in real life situations. Debates on the relationship between media and state have faced both simple and divaricate arguments that have remained unresolved largely, and in the end, the theoretical models happen to provide only an initial point for more empirical research on this issue. References Althaus, S., 2006. “False starts, dead ends, and new opportunities in public opinion research.” Critical Review 18, 75–104. Baker, K., 1990. “Public opinion as political invention.” In, K. M. 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