Media Pressure on Foreign Policy: The Evolving Theoretical Framework (The Palgrave Macmillan Series in International Political Communication)

From democratization to terrorism, economic development to conflict resolution, global political dynamics are affected by the increasing pervasiveness and influence of communication media. This series examines the participants and their tools, their strategies and their impact. It offers a mix of comparative and tightly focused analyses that bridge the various elements of communication and political science included in the field of international studies. Particular emphasis is placed on topics related to the rapidly changing communication environment that is being shaped by new technologies and new political realities. This is the evolving world of international political communication. Media pressure is often implicated in changes to foreign policy. It is at once hailed as a check on the abuse of power and then reviled for undermining the roles and responsibilities of democratic institutions. But we are still left to wonder what media pressure is. This question is explicitly answered here, and in doing so it shows how the never-ending conversation between the media and executive creates social imperatives to which the executives "must" respond or else threaten their needed moral positions required to lead or act in international affairs Front Matter....Pages i-xi Introduction....Pages 1-7 The Contemporary Debate....Pages 9-20 Beyond the Contemporary Debate....Pages 21-41 Toward a Theory of Media Pressure....Pages 43-68 The Iraqi Civil War and the Aftermath, 1991....Pages 69-115 Measuring Coverage....Pages 117-149 Measuring Pressure, Testing for Influence....Pages 151-184 Summing Up and Pressing On....Pages 185-212 Back Matter....Pages 213-244 This Study Offers An Explicit Theory Of Media Pressure - What It Is, How It Works, How It Can Be Measured - Based In Part On The 'positioning Theory' In Discursive Psychology. This Offers The First Independent And Comparative History And Analysis Of Media Pressure Vs. Coverage, Through The Lens Of The Insurrection Against Saddam Hussein In 1991. Offers an explicit theory of media pressure - what it is, how it works, how it can be measured - based in part on the field of 'positioning theory' in discursive psychology. This study treats the media and the executive as being in a never-ending public and moral conversation that has the power to undermine the reputation of the government