CNN

73 last real functioanl involvement in vietnam
75 fall of saigon
80 CNN
81 CNN lawsuit to allow them into the presidental press corps
86 Libya
91 GWI

how did the dissemnation of electronic information morph and change in the last 5 yrs


qoutes

from Mass Media and American Foreign Policy: Insider Perspectives on Global Journalism and the Foreign, Patrick O'Heffernan, 41: (1991)

Dennis Ross, Middle east staff specialist, in the reagon NSC, a forgein policy adviosr to VP Bush, during the 88 presidental election campaign...
CNN reports if something is happening now, where you are getting a lot more from CNN then what yuo are getting from your own sources. That is something that has a realtivley short life however...when ships would be hit, some of the CNN reports were very accurate sometimes it turned out not to be true...

from War and American Popular Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia, M. Paul Holsinger
443, 1999

CNN's greatd coup came immediately beforea dn during teh persian gulf war. After George Bush ordered AMerican plans to bomb baghdad on the evening of 1/16/91 CNN anchorman Bernard Sha, John Holliman , Peter Arnett adn their crew were able to tranmist the first pictures to the paitning world..the three major networks were outmanoveraed adn certainly outbroadcast by cnn...

Live, Instatenous, continous, international--these broadcast charestic have given the networkan infulence in world affairs taht extends far beyond the number of viewers...
(CNN vs Fox viewers)

1) though all of those things may be true of CNN, its role is finaned by large amoutns of cash, and mantains power.
2) being used by bush, then clinton, gives it the role of a defacto tool of the state, there is a tense waltz between information and dipolomcy, b/w soft and hard power, b/w what will gaurentee them access and what makes good tv
3) as shit gets cheaper, and the american empire exapands, eventually everyone will have media that is more live, more instentous, more continous, more international, there will be less gatekeepers
4) though CNN is faster, and more responsive then tradtional news media, it is not fster then (and so its role will fall back on seeking authourity and analysis
5) lbj read the papers, but the papers had less access then the tv does, and elss ubiquity.
6) the idea of cnn as packaged, as the theater of war becoming cinematic, etc (standard chomsky left line)


It has often been noted that the golbal expansiveness of...CNN into different world regions required a flexible and adpatable local identies. As David Morley and Kevin Robimns note CNN's dystopian goals aof global grwoth adn control proved difficult to sustain as teh nework grew and "encountered the real world, the world of already exisitng and established markets and cultures" AS it increased its golbal reach, CNN ffound it nessc. to increase collabratons with reigional partners in an effort to "econile golbal ambitons with local complexities"
from
Ambient Television: Visual Culture and Public Space By Anna McCarthy

(compare artnetts interview with fullaci(sp)'s interview with the shah, and the later interview with Jennings in 2005?)

To Read:
Bernard Cohen, the Press adn Foreign Policy
DisInfo Press, You Are Being Lied to, etc
War and American Popular Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia By M. Paul Holsinger
Satellite Realms: transnational television, globalization and the Middle East By Naomi Sakr
American Hegemony: Preventive War, Iraq, and Imposing Democracy By Demetrios Caraley