National Press Corps Director: Sam Zeidman - Institute for Domestic ...

R u t g e r s Mo d e l C o n g r e s s 13
the media was the “key factor in international relations.” 36
For instance, the media had
an uncanny ability to define situations and give legitimacy to an event or person to the
general audience in such a fashion that if anything contrary to what was said by someone,
it would not have been accepted by society. This process became known as the agendasetting
function. 37 Another function that the mass media had control over was the fact
that it could serve as a catalyst to accelerate or impede a nation’s foreign policy process
and affairs. This is partly due to the fact that as time passed, society and the global
environment become more and more complicated, with an increasing number of people
wanting to know more about international politics, in turn making it easier for the media
to influence the general audience through the increasing number of ‘opinion leaders’ and
gatekeepers. 38
Three Perspectives on Media Influence
While many believe that the media always plays an integral role in public affairs,
there are some that believe otherwise. Through all of the debate about the media and its
influence in the foreign policy decision-making process, the result was the categorization
of the different perspectives of media influence. The first category dealt with the fact that
the media played a highly active role in influencing foreign policy decisions. In this
category, the theory is that the media is viewed as having ‘the privilege of trying to find
out all it can about what is going on” in the government, which, in reality, portrays the
media as an all-powerful, authoritative body. 39 The second category dealt with the fact
that the media took on the exact opposite of the first category, which was a passive voice
in the arena of international relations and foreign policy and acted as, “no more than a
pawn in the political game played by the powerful political authority in Washington” 40
Supporters of this viewpoint believed that the media, at least structurally served as no
more than an instrument in the actual implementation of foreign policies. This theory
36 Malek, Abbas, “News Media and Foreign Relations,” Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1997, 5.
37 Ibid 39
38 “The Role of Mass Media in the U.S. Foreign Policy Making Process”
39 Malek, Abbas, “News Media and Foreign Relations,” Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1997, 5.
40 Ibid