The CNN Effect

According to Baban (2014), the role and importance of media have increased, following the development of technique and technologies, this enhanced possibility to broadcast messages to the population this is currently defined by great accessibility and speed. Similarly, Ali et al (2008) emphasises that information presented by media have a big role in shaping public opinion and influencing voting decision. In contemporary society, the media plays a major role, influencing individual and collective opinion, in the political sphere, both nationally and internationally (Baban, 2014). Naveh (2002), posits that past studies of foreign policy decision-making described the media mainly as a channel for delivering messages during the process, but

According to Baum and Potter (2008), the media does not control the direction of U.S. foreign policy, he posits that the media’s effect on U.S. foreign policy is far more multifaceted than just a simple “cause and effect” attribution suggests and much more subservient to the policy actions of government officials themselves than the case commonly seems. Before delving into the characteristics of mass media it is important to highlight that the mass media causes a CNN effect in societies. The CNN effect is the term coined in the 1990s. It stands for a media impact on foreign policy, either directly or through public opinion (Livingston 2007). Robinson (2013) defines the CNN effect as ‘the ability of real-time communications technology, via the news media, to provoke major responses from domestic audiences and political elites to both global and national events’. Although the term is labelled after the American broadcasting network Cable News Network (CNN), it refers to the impact of the news media in general, and is not synonymous with CNN

(2002) emphasises that mass media organizations are not part of the political structure of the United States of America. He explains that voters do not elect journalists, nor do journalists hold any formal powers or privileges in the formulation and implementation of foreign policies. Mass media can, and often do, play a critical role in foreign policymaking. The typical view of media is that they matter in the early stages of the policy process — that media can help to set an agenda, which is then adopted and dealt with by politicians, policymakers, and other actors (Soroka, Lawlor, Farnsworth & Young,