In this volume journalists and officials, as well as academic experts, analyze the respective roles of the press and the government in the formulation and implementation of American foreign policy. It examines the influence of the media on issues such as the US involvement in Vietnam.

Has the relationship between the media and international relations undergone a fundamental change since Bernard Cohen wrote the 1962 classic, The Press and Foreign Policy? Using data from three years of empirical research at the highest level of the U.S. foreign policy community, the author argues that it has changed, and that totally new theory in both communication and policymaking are needed to understand how nations interact in today's era of global media. Using survey data, in-depth interviews with former President Jimmy Carter and other senior policy officials, and case studies, the author offers a new model of media-influenced foreign policy based on his theory of interdependant mutual exploitation to explain the role of mass media in the foreign policy process.

Since its development shaped by the turmoil of the World Wars and suspicion of new technologies such as film and radio, political communication has become a hybrid field largely devoted to connecting the dots among political rhetoric, politicians and leaders, voters' opinions, and media exposure to better understand how any one aspect can affect the others. In The Oxford Handbook of Political Communication Kate Kenski and Kathleen Hall Jamieson bring together leading scholars, including founders of the field of political communication Elihu Katz, Jay Blumler, Doris Graber, Max McCombs, and Thomas Paterson,to review the major findings about subjects ranging from the effects of political advertising and debates and understandings and misunderstandings of agenda setting, framing, and cultivation to the changing contours of social media use in politics and the functions of the press in a democratic system. The essays in this volume reveal that political communication is a hybrid field with complex ancestry, permeable boundaries, and interests that overlap with those of related fields such as political sociology, public opinion, rhetoric, neuroscience, and the new hybrid on the quad, media psychology. This comprehensive review of the political communication literature is an indispensible reference for scholars and students interested in the study of how, why, when, and with what effect humans make sense of symbolic exchanges about sharing and shared power. The sixty-two chapters in The Oxford Handbook of Political Communication contain an overview of past scholarship while providing critical reflection of its relevance in a changing media landscape and offering agendas for future research and innovation.

American politics and political economy series.

The CNN Effect examines the relationship between the state and its media, and considers the role played by the news reporting in a series of 'humanitarian' interventions in Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo and Rwanda. Piers Robinson challenges traditional views of media subservience and argues that sympathetic news coverage at key moments in foreign crises can influence the response of Western governments.

The American public has consistently declared itself less concerned with foreign affairs in the post-Cold War era, even after 9/11, than at any time since World War II. How can it be, then, that public attentiveness to U.S. foreign policy crises has increased? This book represents the first systematic attempt to explain this apparent paradox. Matthew Baum argues that the answer lies in changes to television's presentation of political information. In so doing he develops a compelling "byproduct" theory of information consumption. The information revolution has fundamentally changed the way the mass media, especially television, covers foreign policy. Traditional news has been repackaged into numerous entertainment-oriented news programs and talk shows. By transforming political issues involving scandal or violence (especially attacks against America) into entertainment, the "soft news" media have actually captured more viewers who will now follow news about foreign crises, due to its entertainment value, even if they remain uninterested in foreign policy. Baum rigorously tests his theory through content analyses of traditional and soft news media coverage of various post-WWII U.S. foreign crises and statistical analyses of public opinion surveys. The results hold key implications for the future of American politics and foreign policy. For instance, watching soft news reinforces isolationism among many inattentive Americans. Scholars, political analysts, and even politicians have tended to ignore the soft news media and politically disengaged citizens. But, as this well-written book cogently demonstrates, soft news viewers represent a largely untapped reservoir of unusually persuadable voters.

This book examines under what scope conditions foreign policy actors adopt media logic. The authors analyze media logic under three specific scope conditions: uncertainty, identity, resonance. First, they lay out the general adaptation of media logic in the general debate of the UN General Assembly 1992-2010. They then explore the adaptation of media logic in Finland, Sweden and the United Kingdom concerning the cases of humanitarian intervention in Côte d’Ivoire and Libya, both in 2011. The results indicate the need to move beyond the assumption of a general process of mediatization affecting politics in total. Instead, they point in the direction of a nuanced process of mediatization more likely under certain scope conditions and in certain political contexts.