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 socalled '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 !!
CNN fake video of front line in
Libya
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 consent
The 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.
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
Thanks