Humanitarian crises and U.S. foreign policy: Somalia and the CNN effect reconsidered

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between foreign policy making and news media coverage. Specifically, we examine the CNN effect, understood here as elite decision makers’ loss of policy control to news media. The initial decisions concerning U.S. intervention in Somalia are examined and related to the nature and extent of media coverage devoted to the humanitarian crisis there. We find that in the case of Somalia, news coverage trends do not support the claim that news attention to Somalia led to the Bush administration's decision to intervene. On the basis of content analysis and interviews of officials in Washington and Africa, we argue that the decision to intervene was the result of diplomatic and bureaucratic operations, with news coverage coming in response to those decisions.