Media and Foreign Policy: February 2009

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Feb 23: Mexico: Police Chief Resigns

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/latin_america/newsid_7903000/7903016.stm

Feb 23: Police Chief Resigns in Ciudad Juarez

http://www.impre.com/laopinion/noticias/latinoamerica/2009/2/21/renuncia-jefe-policiaco-en-jua-110445-1.html

week 6

This week we talked about the trinity of government (reason), the people (passion) and the military (uncertainty). This model emerged from the French revolution. The passions of the people would get out of hand and the miltary's purpose was to deal with those threats or opportunities that resulted. The government's job was to balance the two by not being dismissive of what the people want, but also not caving in to every whim. The new model of the trinity, however, asserts that there are splits within all three group. They aren't efficient and don't reflect unanimity. We then discussed how mass media is an extension of the individual human senses. Mass media is also the sum total of media aimed deliberately or otherwise at specific, collective, target audiences or a combination of specific target audience. Different types of media also rely on each other, since people get their information from multiple sources. We must also realize people are not blank slates and no matter how a media source frames an event, it never forces someone to accept it 100%. We then examined psyops and its importance. It is manipulative as are all other forms of communication. It's a tool of foreign policy and the state that is used to influence the actions and ideas of other groups in favor of the sender.

1. What sort of media rely on each other
2. What happens when mass media reaches an unintended audience

2. When mass media reaches an unintended audience, it may result in the same desired effects as in the target audience. It is more likely, however, the undesired consequences may arise as a result of differing beliefs from the target audience, leading to negative consequences for the originators of the message.

Week 5

This week in class we learned how we tend to look at coverage of foreign policy in general and the components we should look at. We need to know if 1. We're looking at it from the outside and 2. How we can plug into it to influence the foreign policy process. We also discussed how we need to be mindful of the fact that no single theory will tell us everything we need to know. Even with the use of multiple theories, it's nealry impossible to have 100% explained. We then learned that perfect information does not exist and correlation does not equal causation. If you are aware of the fact that it's impossible to know everything and if you are able to identify the risks, you're a lot better off then if you were to randomly guess. In this way, we need to understand that these theories won't answer all of our questions, but the do help us to better understand the events. Also, we need to be aware of the role of technology and of the fact that individuals are now getting their news from such a vast array of media that their reaction to what is important is vastly different then ever before. If we plug this fact into the foreign policy process, we get a variety of actors that become very difficult to track.

1. What happens if you assume you have all the information?

2. Was it easier to track actors before the recent advancements in technology and the growth of media sources?

2. It probably was more difficult to track actors before the recent advancements in information and communications technology and the growth of available media sources. Even thought the growth in technology and media outlets has given us more information, the overabundance of info has made credibility decline. Before these occurrences, however, information was disseminated at a much slower rate, so by the time one individual received it, it was already outdated. Even without technological advances and abundant news sources, it was still difficult to track actors.

Week 2

This week we discussed how the formation of foreign policy is a process of multiple actors with multiple interests dealing with multiple issues. In order to make sense of what is going on, we need to figure out who are the actors, what are their interests, and what are opportunities and constraints in reaching these interests. In order to better understand this, we use a three dimensional xyz chart. Time is on the x axis, events are on the y axis, and actors are on the z axis. The chart has more than one intersection at any given time. There are lots of events leading up to other events, with multiple actors who are not autonomous. we must also understand that there are a lot of other events going on simultaneously. We then discussed different systematic theories of mass media. Among these models are the sender-receiver model, the opinion leader model, and finally, the plate of spaghetti / LA freeway model. The next class, we examined two stories in different media sources and compared the summary, placement, framing, time, context, depth actors and interests. I felt that this exercise was very useful in helping me to find subtleties between news sources that i would otherwise overlook.

1. Are there any other models or theories that attempt to explain the flow of information?
2. What happens when decision makers don't take into account the implications of the x,y,z chart depicting time, events, and actors?

2. When decision makers fail to take into account that multiple actor and multiple events are occurring simultaneously at any point in time, disastrous things will occur. Any attempt to create foreign policy in this manner will result in occurrences that no one had the foresight to predict. By taking into account this model, you at least acknowledge that the future is dependent on the outcomes of these events and the actors behind them.