Moving Beyond the CNN Effect or Stuck in the Middle? How Relational Sociology Remaps Media and Security Studies

Abstract

Recent studies of media and security continue to be limited by various theoretical and ontological commitments, despite their claims of “moving beyond” or “reconsidering” the CNN effect. In this article, I review the two dominant research paradigms for media and security. The first research paradigm, which includes the CNN-effect literature, imagines media as an independent actor in the policy-making process. The second research paradigm portrays media as a neutral channel, passing along the message of foreign policy elites. Each of these paradigms remains wedded to an actor-centered and choice-theoretic approach to media and security, as witnessed by recent attempts to study the CNN effect. I argue that a new research paradigm based on relational sociology actually moves media and security studies beyond the CNN effect and resolves the fundamental theoretical limitations associated with it.