p.339) argued that US government was reluctant to designate ground
troops and escalate air strikes, which actually confirmed the ‘body-bag’
effect from the side, namely President Clinton was afraid of negative
media coverage. Furthermore, as Saberi (2000, p.82) noted, American
public opinion remains firmly opposed to taking any risks of even just few
US lives. Overall the enabling effect and ‘body-bag’ effect are likely to
have played constraining roles on US policy decisions.
Conclusion
Based on the analysis of media-policy interaction model, it can be claimed
that the media has a certain impact on the position of the US government in
the conflict of Bosnia and Kosovo. The investigation of Gorazde instance
of intervention in Bosnia strengthens the confidence that the combination
of critical and sympathetic framework of news reporting and the policy
uncertainty before the threat of force suggests that media reporting could
be a decisive factor in intervention decisions, while Kosovo case seems
to indicate when policy certainty exists within the executives, media may
influence slight on policy decisions. However, certain enabling effect and
‘body-bag’ effect can be recognized from Kosovo case, by helping policy
makers to rationalize the policy to public and impeding executives to
intensify air strikes owing to fear of casualties.
Measuring these examples in entirety, some general trends are
perceptible. As Hawkins (2011) emphasized, media coverage is surely
not the only crucial factor in determining the policy formulation about
major issues of war and distant crises, but it undoubtedly is one of
elements of the agenda-setting process. Furthermore, CNN effect
pattern is conducive to acknowledging the impact of media news on
conflicts in the post-Cold War era (Gilboa et al., 2016). However, intense
conversions in the world of communication and conflict currently, the pace
of unpredictable propagation of media not only affect how media reflects
and portrays conflicts, but also how people, as the public and policy
decider, perceive, construe and respond to conflicts. Media coverage
could influence policy decisions, and the humanitarian community should
be enabled to explore ways to promote media coverage that generate
useful political pressure and beneficial humanitarian results.
References
Balabanova, E. (2004) ‘The CNN Effect’ in Eastern Europe - Does it Exist?
The Representation of the Kosovo Conflict in the Bulgarian Print Media’,
Perspectives on European Politics and Society, 5(2), January, pp.273-304.
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