Video and Foreign Policy
Public Opinion
Policies are more often shaped by public approval then they were in the past, the days before television and video technology. Modern politics is preoccupied with the camera and how the pictures will look to the public. This is a bad thing, when the public is uninformed, and the media has been criticized for failing to educate the public adequately.
A limitation of political reporting through television is that it is an "instrument of simplicity in a world of complexity" (Gergen). Television news, which uses video technology, provides a quick summary, but is not necessarily educational or enlightening. Television news has also been criticized because it is drawn to conflict and crisis, and lacks continuity and a complete picture. If nothing exciting or dramatic is happening in Australia, for instance, the American public will not hear a word about it.
Television is also criticized for ignoring certain areas of the world. American television was slow to recognize the massacre in Cambodia, as well as the famine in Africa. By the time the news producers deemed these events newsworthy, it was perhaps too late to get the world's attention (Serfaty). If public opinion plays an important role in shaping government policy, then television's role in educating the public is a weighty one.
Video technology has changed the way policy is made and has added to the complexity of international relations.
Sources:
--The Media and Foreign Policy, edited by Simon Serfaty (1990), including the articles:
"Leakers, Terrorists, Policy Makers and the Press" by John P. Wallach, and "Diplomacy in a Television Age: The Dangers of Teledemocracy" by David R. Gergen.
--American Propaganda Abroad by Fitzhugh Green (1988).
Patrick Tyler, New York Times (March 2, 1994)
--cnn.com
