Television news and American intervention in Somalia: The myth of a media-driven foreign policy

Political Science Quarterly

Volumn 112, Issue 3, 1997, Pages 385-403

  Mermin, Jonathan ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0031232347     PISSN: 00323195     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/2657563     Document Type: Article

References (80)

1. Bernard C. Cohen, "A View from the Academy" in W. Lance Bennett and David L. Paletz, eds., Taken By Storm: The Media, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy in the Gulf War (Chicago: Uni-versity of Chicago Press, 1994), 9-10.
2. Michael Mandelbaum, "The Reluctance to Intervene," Foreign Policy 95 (Summer 1994): 16.
3. Adam Roberts, "Humanitarian War: Military Intervention and Human Rights," International Affairs 69 (July 1993): 446.
4. George F. Kennan, "Somalia, Through a Glass Darkly," New York Times, 30 September, 1993.
5. Christopher J. Bosso, "Setting the Agenda: Mass Media and the Discovery of Famine in Ethiopia" in Michael Margolis and Gary A. Mauser, eds., Manipulating Public Opinion: Essays on Public Opinion as a Dependent Variable (Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, 1989), 168-69. (Emphasis in original.)
6. Paul Harrison and Robin Palmer, News Out of Africa: Biafra to Band Aid (London: Hilary Shipman, 1986), 123-24.
7. John W. Kingdon, Agendas. Alternatives, and Public Policies (Boston: Little, Brown, 1984), 3.
8. Charles W. Kegley, Jr. and Eugene R. Wittkopf, American Foreign Policy: Pattern and Process (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987), 327.
9. See Herbert J. Gans, Deciding What's News (New York: Pantheon Books, 1979); Gaye Tuchman, "Objectivity as Strategic Ritual: An Examination of Newsmen's Notions of Objectivity," American Journal of Sociology 77 (November 1972); and Mark Fishman, Manufacturing the News (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980).
10. See Herbert J. Gans, Deciding What's News (New York: Pantheon Books, 1979); Gaye Tuchman, "Objectivity as Strategic Ritual: An Examination of Newsmen's Notions of Objectivity," American Journal of Sociology 77 (November 1972); and Mark Fishman, Manufacturing the News (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980).
11. See Herbert J. Gans, Deciding What's News (New York: Pantheon Books, 1979); Gaye Tuchman, "Objectivity as Strategic Ritual: An Examination of Newsmen's Notions of Objectivity," American Journal of Sociology 77 (November 1972); and Mark Fishman, Manufacturing the News (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980).
12. Leon V. Sigal, "Sources Make the News" in Robert Karl Manoff and Michael Schudson, eds., Reading the News (New York: Pantheon Books, 1986), 16.
13. Daniel C. Hallin, The 'Uncensored War': The Media and Vietnam (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 71.
14. W. Lance Bennett, "Toward a Theory of Press-State Relations in the United States," Journal of Communication 40 (Spring 1990): 122.
15. See Michael Schudson, Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers (New York: Basic Books, 1978); and Tuchman, "Objectivity as Strategic Ritual."
16. See Michael Schudson, Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers (New York: Basic Books, 1978); and Tuchman, "Objectivity as Strategic Ritual."
17. Thomas E. Patterson, Out of Order (New York: Vintage Books, 1994).
18. Hallin, The 'Uncensored War', 8.
19. On this point, see Timothy E. Cook, Making Laws and Making News: Media Strategies in the U.S. House of Representatives (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1989); and Gans, Deciding What's News.
20. On this point, see Timothy E. Cook, Making Laws and Making News: Media Strategies in the U.S. House of Representatives (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1989); and Gans, Deciding What's News.
21. On the impact of economic considerations on news decisions, see Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992); and Gans, Deciding What's News. On news as entertainment, see Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (New York: Penguin Books, 1985).
22. On the impact of economic considerations on news decisions, see Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992); and Gans, Deciding What's News. On news as entertainment, see Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (New York: Penguin Books, 1985).
23. On the impact of economic considerations on news decisions, see Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992); and Gans, Deciding What's News. On news as entertainment, see Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (New York: Penguin Books, 1985).
24. For evidence that American journalists tend to hold liberal political views, which could encourage them to publicize events such as African famines, see Robert S. Lichter, Stanley Rothman, and Linda S. Lichter, The Media Elite: America's New Powerbrokers (Bethesda, MD: Adler and Adler, 1986).
25. Samuel M. Makinda, Seeking Peace From Chaos: Humanitarian Intervention in Somalia (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1993), 61.
26. Peter J. Schraeder, United States Foreign Policy toward Africa: Incrementalism, Crisis and Change (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 177.
27. Ibid., 170.
28. Makinda, Seeking Peace from Chaos, 62-63; Schraeder, United States Foreign Policy toward Africa, 175.
29. Makinda, Seeking Peace from Chaos, 62-63; Schraeder, United States Foreign Policy toward Africa, 175.
30. Schraeder, United States Foreign Policy toward Africa, 175.
31. The full stories in this study average from two to three minutes in length. No studio report exceeds thirty seconds.
32. CBS Evening News, 27 February, 1992.
33. NBC Nightly News, 2 March 1992.
34. ABC World News Tonight, 22 July 1992.
35. Ibid.
36. Marilyn Greene, "Senator Reaches Out to Somalia," USA Today, 20 July 1992.
37. On the use of "phase structures" to determine what constitutes news, see Mark Fishman, Manufacturing the News (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980), 63-76.
38. Congressional Record, 1 April 1992, E978.
39. Congressional Record, 19 May 1992, S6933.
40. Fishman, Manufacturing the News.
41. Kennan, "Somalia, Through a Glass Darkly."
42. Cohen, "A View from the Academy," 10.
43. Ibid., 9.
44. Harrison and Palmer, News Out of Africa, 129.
45. CBS Evening News, 31 July 1992.
46. Shari Rudavsky, "Bush, UN Face Pressure to Aid War-Torn Somalia," Washington Post, 27 July 1992.
47. "Hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee: U.S. Refugee Programs for FY 1993," Federal News Service, 23 July 1992.
48. "Statement by Press Secretary Fitzwater on the Situation in Somalia," Public Papers of the Presidents, 27 July 1992.
49. Schraeder, United States Foreign Policy toward Africa, 177. Unlike the spring resolutions, which did not criticize existing policy, the August resolutions urged a change in policy.
50. Newsmaker Sunday, CNN, 9 August 1992.
51. Morning Edition, NPR, 7 August 1992.
52. MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour, 6 August 1992.
53. Crossfire, CNN, 3 August 1992.
54. "Excerpts from Clinton's Speech on Foreign Policy Leadership," New York Times, 14 August 1992.
55. ABC World News Tonight, 13 August 1992.
56. Trevor Rowe, "UN Approves Use of Military Force for Bosnia Aid," Washington Post, 14 August 1992.
57. Jane Perlez, "U.S. Encounters Snags in Airlift to Aid Somalia," New York Times, 22 August 1992.
58. Kennan, "Somalia, Through a Glass Darkly."
59. ABC World News Tonight, 13 August 1992.
60. NBC Nightly News, 2 March 1992.
61. "Somalians Fight Over Meager Rations," CNN, 11 May 1992.
62. "Somalian Famine Reaches Crisis Proportions," CNN, 15 May 1992.
63. "Somalia Starvation Worsens Due to Civil War," CNN, 3 May 1992.
64. "Somalia Problems Mounting Without Signs of Respite," CNN, 5 May 1992.
65. The papers were selected arbitrarily: they are the nine papers that list their letters in LEXIS/ NEXIS under the heading "letters to the editor." The papers are the Columbus Dispatch, the Louisville Courier-Journal, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, the Los Angeles Times, the Orlando Sentinel Tribune, the St. Petersburg Times, and the Washington Post. The search terms were "letters to the editor" and "Somalia."
66. Roberts, "Humanitarian War," 446.
67. Mandelbaum, "The Reluctance to Intervene," 16.
68. Fishman, Manufacturing the News, 63-76.
69. Marilyn Greene, "Senators Call for Protection for Somalian Aid Shipments," USA Today, 10 November 1992.
70. Gwen Ifill, "Bush and Clinton Proclaim End to the Election's Rancor," New York Times, 19 November 1992.
71. Russell Watson, "Troops to Somalia," Newsweek, 7 December 1992.
72. Leslie H. GeIb, "Shoot to Feed Somalia," New York Times, 19 November 1992.
73. Buchizya Mseteka, "Members of Congress Call for Firmer UN Role in Somalia," Reuters, 18 November 1992.
74. NBC Nightly News, 21 November 1992.
75. CBS Evening News, 21 November 1992.
76. NBC Nightly News, 24 November 1992.
77. On this danger, see Jim Mann, "Somalia Closing Out Bush's 'New World Order,'" Los Angeles Times, 29 November 1992.
78. "Rep. John Lewis," Renter Transcript Report, 21 November 1992.
79. Schraeder, United States Foreign Policy toward Africa, 177-78.
80. Cohen, "A View from the Academy." 10. * I am grateful to Timothy Cook, Bruce Russett, and two anonymous referees for comments on earlier drafts of this article, and to the MacArthur Foundation for support.