Notes and References

"Reflections on the Politics of the Global 'Rolling-News' Television Genre" by M. Mehdi Semati
to article page 1, page 2

Notes:
(1) Needless to say, one may further differentiate effects. Livingston (1992) discusses the media as impediment category as (a) an "emotional inhibitor" and (b) a "threat to operational security." My purpose in this article, however, is larger in scope and such distinctions will be subsumed in the larger context of my arguments.

(2) Quoted in Livingston (1997, p. 294). For other statements and examples attesting to this issue see Neuman (1996), Seib (1997), and Livingston (1997).

(3) For a full explanation of the history of communication technologies and their relationship to foreign policy see Neuman (1996).

(4) In the sense that the obscuring of temporal dimensions of information ("always" there), crisis (conflict with "duration"), and catastrophe ("instantaneous") constitutes the specificity of television's operation (Doane, 1990), we might say that the rolling-news channel is a realization of the principle of operation of television as such.

(5) MacGregor's book is particularly valuable since it is rich with data, from interviews with practitioners and detailed analyses of newsgathering technologies, procedures, and rituals.

(6) One such program was broadcast around the world on February 1998. As the United States prepared a military strike against Iraq for failing to meet the demands of the UN's weapon inspection team, CNN, at the request of the White House, organized a "town hall meeting." Titled "Showdown With Iraq: An International Town Meeting," the program was to drum up support for taking military actions. Contrary to the White House's expectations, the audience of this "talk show" refused to ask polite questions and embarrassed the administration. While the program was deemed a "public relations fiasco," it was seen as a "bonanza" for CNN (Bennet, 1998). The public participation in this case, while accidental, is nevertheless a democratic byproduct of the televisualization of foreign policy decision-making processes.

References:
Baudrillard, J. (1995). The Gulf War Did Not Take Place. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Bennet, J. (1998, February 19). "Bad Vibes From the Heartland Launch Fleet of Finger-Pointers." The New York Times.

Cumings, B. (1992). War and Television. London: Verso.

Denton, Jr., R. E. (1993). "Television as an Instrument of War." in R. E. Denton, Jr. (ed.) The Media and the Persian Gulf War. pp. 27-42. London: Praeger.

Doane, M. A. (1990). "Information, Crisis, Catastrophe" in P. Mellencamp (ed.) Logics of Television. pp. 222-239. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Flournoy, D. and Stewart, R. (1997). CNN: Making News in the Global Market. London: University of Luton Press.

Gerbner, G. (1992). "Persian Gulf War, the Movie." in H. Mowlana, G. Gerbner, and H. I. Schiller (eds.), Triumph of the Image: The Media's War in the Persian Gulf:A Global Perspective. pp. 243-265. Boulder: Westview Press.

Hachten, W. A. (1999). The World News Prism: Changing Media of International Communication. Ames: Iowa State University Press.

Hallin, D. C. and Gitlin, T. (1994). "The Gulf War as Popular Culture and Television Drama." in W. L. Bennett and D. L. Paletz (eds.) Taken By Storm: The Media, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy in the Gulf War. pp. 149-163. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Hallin, D. C. (1994). We Keep America on Top of the World. Television Journalism and the Public Sphere. New York: Routledge.

Jensen, E. (1999). "CNN's Home-front Offensive." Los Angeles Times (April, 17). Lexis-Nexis.

Kemoner, M. (2000). "CNN Continues Personnel Shake-up as Replacement for US Chief Named. The Atlanta Journal and Constitution. (September, 19). Lexis-Nexis.

Livingston, S and Eachus, T. (1995). "Humanitarian Crises and U.S. Foreign Policy: Somalia and the CNN Effects Reconsidered." Political Communication, 12, pp. 413-429.

Livingston, S. (1997). "Beyond the 'CNN Effect': The Media-Foreign Policy Dynamic." in P. Norris (ed.) Politics and the Press: The News Media and Their Influence. pp. 291-318. London: Lynne Rienner.

MacGregor, B. (1997). Live, Direct, and Biased? Making Television News in the Satellite Age. London: Arnold.

Manheim, J. B. (1994). "Strategic Public Diplomacy: Managing Kuwait's Image During the Gulf War." in W. L. Bennett and D. L. Paletz (eds.) Taken By Storm: The Media, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy in the Gulf War. pp. 131-148. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

McAllister, M. (2000). "From Flick to Flack: The Increased Emphasis on Marketing by Media Entertainment Corporations." In R. Anderson and L. A. Strate (eds.), Critical Studies in Media Commercialism. pp.101-122. New York: Oxford University Press.

Mellencamp, P. (1990b). Indiscretions: Avant-Garde Film, Video, and Feminism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Mowlana, H. (1992). "Roots of War: The Long Road of Intervention." in Triumph of the Image: The Media's War in the Persian Gulf: A Global Perspective. pp. 30-50. Boulder: Westview Press.

Neuman, J. (1996). Lights, Camera, War: Is Media Technology Driving International Politics? New York: St. Martin's Press.

Seib, P. (1997). Headline Diplomacy: How News Coverage Affects Foreign Policy. London: Praeger.

Taylor, P. (2000). "Introduction." European Journal of Communication (Special Issue: The Media and the Kosovo Conflict), 15, 3, pp. 293-297.

Thussu, D. K. (2000). "Legitimizing 'Humanitarian Intervention'? CNN, NATO, and the Kosovo Crisis." European Journal of Communication, 15, 3, pp. 345-361.

Tomlinson, J. (1991). Cultural Imperialism: A Critical Introduction. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Vincent, R.(2000). "A Narrative Analysis of US Press Coverage of Slobodan Milosevic and the Serbs in Kosovo." European Journal of Communication, 15, 3, pp. 321-344.