In the most comprehensive study of the media and foreign policy, twenty distinguished scholars and analysts explain the role played by the mass media and public opinion in the development of United States foreign policy in the Gulf War.
Tracing the flow of news, public opinion, and policy decisions from Sadam Hussein's rise to power in 1979, to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, through the outbreak and conclusion of the war, the contributors look at how the media have become key players in the foreign policy process. They examine the pre-war media debate, news coverage during and after the...

There is widespread concern that the explosive growth of the Internet is exacerbating existing inequalities between the information rich and poor. Digital Divide sets out to examine the evidence for access and use of the Internet in 179 nations across the world. A global divide is evident between industrialized and developing societies. A social divide is apparent between rich and poor within each nation. And within the online community, evidence for a democratic divide is emerging between those who do and do not use Internet resources to engage, mobilize and participate in public life.

Giving people the media they want is thought to justify the move toward deregulation that has swept media policy circles. Freedom of the press is thought to require resistance to government interventions in the media realm. This book uses economic and democratic theory to undermine the premises of both beliefs. It also relies on these theories to evaluate journalistic practice, to recommend appropriate governmental policy toward the media, and to defend a preferred constitutional conception of press freedom. These issues should be vitally important to anyone interested in the proper practice...

Examining the role that the news media play in peace processes, Gadi Wolfsfeld argues that, although often destructive, the role of the press varies over time and political circumstance. Wolfsfeld analyzes these variations by examining three major cases: the Oslo peace process between Israel and the Palestinians; the peace process between Israel and Jordan; and the process surrounding the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland.

Proposing a framework for comparative analysis of the relationship between the media and the political system, this book surveys media institutions in eighteen West European and North American democracies. It identifies the principal dimensions of variation in media systems and the political variables which have shaped their evolution. It then pinpoints three major models of media systems development (the Polarized Pluralist, Democratic Corporatist and Liberal models) and explains why the media play a different role in politics in each of these systems.

This book explores the changing nature of democracy in light of dramatic changes in the media of mass communication: the Internet, the decline of network television news and the daily newspaper; the growing tendency to treat election campaigns as competing product advertisements; the blurring lines among news, ads, and entertainment. It explores such questions as: Does the Internet make it easier for citizens to find political information? Do today's highly competitive old and new mass media serve the needs of democratic citizenship? Does the new media environment produce public opinion that...

The Politics of Misinformation is an examination of how concentrations of social and economic power result in public languages of politics that are necessarily image-based, vague, and misleading in their denial of undemocratic tendencies. As a result, public discourses of democracy tend to be populistic, emotional, and likely to emphasize images of progress rather than structural inequalities in their formulations of public problems. In short, neither typical problem definitions nor solutions invite critical popular understanding or involvement in democratic politics.

Giving people the media they want is thought to justify the move toward deregulation that has swept media policy circles. Freedom of the press is thought to require resistance to government interventions in the media realm. This book uses economic and democratic theory to undermine the premises of both beliefs. It also relies on these theories to evaluate journalistic practice, to recommend appropriate governmental policy toward the media, and to defend a preferred constitutional conception of press freedom. These issues should be vitally important to anyone interested in the proper practice...

To provide a comprehensive evaluation of the internet in American democracy, Bruce Bimber sets the contemporary information revolution in historical context, asserting that past developments in American history offer important lessons for understanding how the internet is affecting politics. He examines how citizens and organizations use it for political purposes and is especially interested as to whether new technology is making Americans more engaged in their government. This study about the internet and politics combines historical and survey analysis with case studies of political...

The Politics of Misinformation is an examination of how concentrations of social and economic power result in public languages of politics that are necessarily image-based, vague, and misleading in their denial of undemocratic tendencies. As a result, public discourses of democracy tend to be populistic, emotional, and likely to emphasize images of progress rather than structural inequalities in their formulations of public problems. In short, neither typical problem definitions nor solutions invite critical popular understanding or involvement in democratic politics.