Week 2: The CNN Effect

This weeks’ lecture covered an historical overview of international communication and its significance in international relations, as well as its effect on society and politics. The evolution from telegraph to radio to television to the Internet today has allowed people to spread their message to a broad range of people more quickly than ever before. And key players in international policy are paying attention to the public opinion. This phenomena, known as the “CNN effect”, occurs because of this 24-hour news cycle. A constant stream of updates from abroad demands attention from the world, and strains political decision making as the global community looks to its leaders for a response. We discussed and example of this about the media coverage of the war in Iraq.

Another similar, related development is the use of technology and social media to connect people to take a stand on political issues. One great example of this is the so-called “Twitter Revolution” during the Iranian post-election protests in 2009. The new media technology Twitter was supposedly playing a major role in organizing people during these protests, so much so that US policymakers stepped in to persuade Twitter to postpone maintenance services and continue running at full strength. On the surface it was believed that Twitter was a great help in getting information outside Iran, but in actuality it was mostly Americans tweeting. However, you can see that this constant news feed and buzz from current events may affect policy makers around the globe to speed up the decision making process, instead of gathering all the fact first.

You can read the entire Washington Post article here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/16/AR2009061603391.html