Livingston CNN Effect Reconsidered_again_problematizing ICT & Global Governance_2011

http://mwc.sagepub.com/Media, War & Conflict

http://mwc.sagepub.com/content/4/1/20The online version of this article can be found at:

DOI: 10.1177/1750635210396127

2011 4: 20Media, War & ConflictSteven Livingston

governance in the CNN effect research agendaThe CNN effect reconsidered (again): problematizing ICT and global

Published by:

http://www.sagepublications.com

On behalf of:

Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism

can be found at:Media, War & ConflictAdditional services and information for

http://mwc.sagepub.com/cgi/alertsEmail Alerts:

http://mwc.sagepub.com/subscriptionsSubscriptions:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navPermissions:

http://mwc.sagepub.com/content/4/1/20.refs.htmlCitations:

at UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek on April 21, 2013mwc.sagepub.comDownloaded from

http://mwc.sagepub.com/

http://mwc.sagepub.com/content/4/1/20

http://www.sagepublications.com

http://annenberg.usc.edu/

http://mwc.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts

http://mwc.sagepub.com/subscriptions

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

http://mwc.sagepub.com/content/4/1/20.refs.html


What is This?

- Apr 8, 2011Version of Record >>


http://mwc.sagepub.com/content/4/1/20.full.pdf

http://online.sagepub.com/site/sphelp/vorhelp.xhtml


Article

MWC

Media, War & Conflict4(1) 20–36

© The Author(s) 2011Reprints and permission: sagepub.

co.uk/journalsPermissions.navDOI: 10.1177/1750635210396127

mwc.sagepub.com

Corresponding author:Steven Livingston, School of Media and Public Affairs, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University, 805 21st Street, NW, Washington, DC 20052, USA. Email: [email protected]

The CNN effect reconsidered (again): problematizing ICT and global governance in the CNN effect research agenda

Steven Livingston George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA

AbstractEarly CNN effect research considered policy effects associated with cumbersome satellite uplinks of limited capacity. Today, nearly ubiquitous mobile telephony and highly portable satellite uplinks enable high-speed data transmission, including voice and video streaming, from most remote locations. Also, important geopolitical realignments have occurred since the end of the Cold War. The US is now challenged by new economic and cultural powerhouses, and by the rise of networked nonstate actors. It is not simply a matter of realignment among nation-states, as the original CNN effects research noted, but also a realignment between the type, scope and scale of actors involved in global governance. Rather than confining the argument to a consideration of media effects on state policy processes, this article argues that important technological and political developments call for a new research path, one that centers on the relationship between governance and the nature of a given information environment.

KeywordsCNN effect, complex interdependence, crowdsourcing, event mapping, geographical information systems (GIS), governance, information regimes, mobile telephony, scale shifting, Ushahidi

CNN effect research focuses on two core questions: first, how might global real-time television affect state foreign policy processes? Second, how do geopolitical realign-ments affect the probability and intensity of these potential policy effects?



Livingston 21

Regarding the first question, researchers have considered whether global television coverage of distant events accelerates decision cycles or alters policy by adding new objectives or, conversely, by undermining public support or operational security for exist-ing ones (Livingston, 1997; Livingston and Eachus, 1995). The second question draws attention to the geopolitical context of potential media effects on foreign policy. The con-fidence that policy makers have in the soundness of objectives and in the conduct of policy reflects the conceptual clarity associated with a particular geopolitical context. The end of the Cold War, for example, created policy uncertainty for the US (Robinson, 2000, 2002).

Although the CNN effect research agenda has proven quite creative and robust over the years, it has failed to adjust to important changes in technology and politics.1 We should call to mind that initial CNN effect case studies were, on the whole, written prior to the flourishing of the world wide web.2 Changes involve more than technology. Equally important geopolitical realignments have occurred since the end of the Cold War. Although the US remains a dominant military and political power in the world, new economic and cultural powerhouses are on the rise (Zakaria, 2008). What is more, inter-national relations scholars point to the growing importance of nonstate actors in global affairs (Rosenau and Czempiel, 1992; Singh and Rosenau, 2002). It is not simply a mat-ter of realignment among nation-states, but also realignment between the type, scope and scale of actors involved in global politics.

Rather than confine ourselves to consideration of media effects on state policy pro-cesses, important developments call for a new path, one that centers on the relationship between governance, on the one hand, and information and communication technology (ICT) on the other. A more intellectually exciting and politically germane research question is this: How does the nature of an information environment alter the nature of governance? (Weiss, 2000; Weiss and Thakur, 2010; Wendt, 1992). Governance encompasses the

complex of formal and informal institutions, mechanisms, relationships, and processes between and among states, markets, citizens and organizations, both inter- and non-governmental, through which collective interests on the global plane are articulated, rights and obligations are established, and differences are mediated. (Weiss and Thakur, 2010)

The point of this article is to suggest why this refocusing of research is necessary and impor-tant for the development of political communication and international relations theory.

My argument comes in two part. First, I argue that theory building must take into account the evolving nature of the central independent variable in CNN effects research: the production of content. Significant changes in technology have removed, to a great extent, the historical encumbrances to live newsgathering in remote locations. A news manager’s decision calculus regarding the distribution of newsgathering resources no longer involves the same extraordinary costs once associated with such a circumstance.3

Second, I argue that analyses must look at systems-level effects of a given state of technological development. It is not only a matter of specific technologies advancing in ways that affect television, but rather how television itself is a part of – and at times indis-tinguishable from – other technologies comprising what I shall refer to as an infosystem.

I will begin with a review of specific advances in satellite newsgathering (SNG) and then take up the argument concerning infosystems and governance.4 I close with an assessment of the benefits and costs of my suggested approach.



22 Media,War&Conflict4(1)

Satellite newsgathering

The 1990–1 Persian Gulf War was CNN’s signature moment. On 17 January 1991, CNN correspondents John Holliman, Peter Arnett and Bernard Shaw relayed dramatic audio reports describing the opening hours of the coalition bombing campaign. They did so using a ‘four-wire’ circuit running from Baghdad to Amman, Jordan. This relatively simple technology allowed CNN to offer live audio reports, even after the telephone lines in Baghdad went dead. In coming days, veteran war correspondent Arnett remained behind as his colleagues returned to the US. Switching to an Inmarsat-A satellite termi-nal, he offered riveting and at times controversial reports about the bombing campaign. Arnett’s reporting and the technology he used provides a benchmark for measuring sub-sequent developments in SNG technology.

Two weeks into the bombing campaign, another technology offered CNN its second news coup of the war: a live television interview with Saddam Hussein. Unlike the audio-only Inmarsat-A uplink, this second technology, a C-band flyaway unit, relayed live video. It was not easy to use, however, as the Washington Post’s Tom Shales made clear at the time.

A portable satellite uplink device known as a ‘flyaway’ had to be taken to Baghdad from Amman, Jordan, on a flatbed truck, with five more CNN crew members joining Arnett to rig the device for transmission. Then it became a matter of aiming the portable satellite dish 23,000 miles out into space to the correct transponder of the correct satellite that would beam the image back to Atlanta for broadcast on CNN. This is, apparently, what took hours and hours to accomplish. (Shales, 1991)

All of this relied on a growing fleet of communication satellites. Telstar, the first satellite to relay television transmissions, was launched in 1962. Two years later the first geosta-tionary satellite, the Syncom 3, was in orbit. In rapid succession, a number of additional satellites came online. For television news, the launch of Satcom 1 in 1975 was instru-mental in establishing the technological feasibility of WTBS (in some ways the precur-sor to CNN), HBO, and the Weather Channel.5

As important as communication satellites are, the greater breakthrough in SNG may be in the mobile uplink terminals. Arnett’s live uplink in 1991 filled a flatbed truck, while his Inmarsat-A was the size of a small filing cabinet. During the NATO bombing cam-paign against targets in Kosovo and Serbia in 1999, television networks offered live broadcasts from satellite uplink units mounted on the back of trucks similar in size to those used by express mail delivery services. In Afghanistan in 2001, the rough terrain meant even smaller uplink units were transported in several hardened containers.

The videophone has enabled television news crews to venture out into the danger zone in northern Afghanistan, untethered to a customary satellite uplink they need to beat the other guy on the air with a live shot. Over rugged mountain routes, crews are able to tote scaled-down versions of equipment that usually weighs in excess of a ton (Wasserman, 2001).6

Flyaway satellite uplinks have continued their steady reduction in size, weight, and expense. Rather than filling cargo holds, flyaway satellite uplinks today fill suitcase-sized containers. By 2008, Ku-band satellite uplinks came in compact cases and were found mounted on the rooftop of BMW Mini Coopers (Higgins, 2008). Advances in



Livingston 23

Codex Video compression have also been a key aspect of the greater capacity to transmit live from remote locations. Compression reduces the amount of digital information required to transmit and view video streams (Bier, 2006).

Yet the most significant change in satellite uplink capacity is probably found in Inmarsat terminals. Originally founded in 1979 as a maritime emergency communication system, the International Maritime Satellite Organization (Inmarsat) became a private company in 1999 (Inmarsat, 1999). Today, a BGAN X-Stream terminal transmits at speeds in excess of 384 kbps for live video broadcasting. As a point of comparison, the Inmarsat-A used by Arnett offered analog FM voice and telex services at 56 or 64 kbps. The X-Stream also supports Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) at 64 kbps, allowing it to support email and internet, including the use of Voice Over Internet Protocol services such as Skype. It can also send large file attachments over a secure connection at speeds up to 492 kbps. Inmarsat is probably correct in its claim that: ‘As video quality is vastly improved, news companies can now consider replacing their SNG trucks with BGAN terminals that use BGAN X-Stream, thus saving money’ (Inmarsat, 2010). Inmarsat terminals can be carried in a shoulder case, used around the globe with-out restrictions from satellite frequency regulators, and operated by non-technical per-sonnel. Set up and satellite connectivity takes minutes.7

Changes such as these, and many more not taken up in this limited space, have almost certainly altered the nature of news content and, therefore, possible policy effects (Livingston and Bennett, 2003; Livingston and Van Belle, 2005). Yet, as important as these advances in SNG are, they are best understood as a small part of a much greater revolution in digital technology. The second point of my argument goes beyond a consid-eration of specific technological effects on policy outcomes. I argue that analyses must also look at systems-level effects.

Satellite uplinks and other accoutrements of SNG are generally available to wealthy institutional users, such as news organizations. They allow organizations to temporarily reach into geographical spaces that are otherwise inaccessible. To use the language of network theory, an uplink can be thought of as a mobile node that establishes temporary connections in previously unconnected spaces. Although this is politically important, a more interesting development involves the use of technologies that help people reach out of previously inaccessible locations. The greater technological revolution is found in simple technologies that empower people through the creation of more stable and endur-ing networks. The extraordinary development of cellular telephony and related technolo-gies does exactly that. To see the broader contours of the information environment and its effect on governance, we must spend time outlining these developments.

Cellular telephony and networks

Cellular telephony has been the most rapidly adopted technology in history (International Telecommunication Union, 2010). By the beginning of 2009, half the global population paid, in some way, to use a cell phone (see Figure 1). There were an estimated 4.6 billion mobile phone subscriptions (a number that is growing rapidly), or 6 of every 10 persons on the planet. This of course underestimates the total population of users, for not all users pay for the service. Most of the growth in recent years has occurred in the developing world.




Africa, for example, has had the fastest mobile growth rate in recent years. Mobile pene-tration soared from 2 percent at the turn of the century to 28 percent by the end of 2009. Growth rates in some sectors have been nothing less than astonishing. With a total national population of 38.5 million people, Kenya mobile phone subscriptions jumped from just 200,000 in 2000 to 17.5 million in 2009. About half of all Kenyans subscribe to a mobile service, with many more using phones made available by friends and family (Engeler, 2010). Ghana recorded a mobile penetration rate that exceeded 60 percent by the end of 2009. It stood at just 22 percent three years before (Nonor, 2009).

Mobile phone penetration in Latin America and the Caribbean was approximately 80 percent in early 2009, well above the world average.8 Jamaica mobile penetration rate was 115 percent, Argentina 110 percent, Uruguay 109 percent, and Venezuela 101 per-cent. Bolivia at 48 percent, Costa Rica at 48 percent, Nicaragua at 52 percent, and Cuba at 2.9 percent trailed behind (Von/Xchange, 2009). In Asia, India and China are in a league all their own. India recently surpassed China as the fastest-growing cell phone market in the world, although it still lags behind China in total subscribers. As of early 2010, it had 143 million subscribers, compared with China’s 449 million (Vardy, 2010).

Market expansion of services by eager businesses explains most of the growth. The drive was for profit, not political change. But as Sudanese-born billionaire Mo Ibrahim9 recently observed:

The mobile industry changed Africa. I must admit we were not smart enough to foresee that. What we saw is a real need for telecommunication in Africa, and that need had not been fulfilled. For me that was a business project, but also a political project. (BBC, 2009)

Of greatest interest here are the efforts to expand the reach of cellular telephony to regions where market economics do not support service, such as in zones of extreme poverty and insecurity. NGOs and other international organizations ‘seed’ mobile sys-tems to gain the social, economic and political benefits accrued to publics by the forma-tion of networks.10

Figure 1. A Decade of ICT growth driven by mobile technologies.Source: ITU World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Database.

Per

100

inh

abit

ants

'98

*Estimates

'99 '00 '01 '02 '03 '04 '05 '06 '07 '08 '09*

7.19.5

17.825.9

67.0

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0

Mobile cellular telephone subscriptions

Fixed broadband subscribersMobile broadband subscriptions

Internet usersFixed telephone lines

An estimated 4.6 bnsubscriptions globally

by the end of 2009



Livingston 25

Mobiles are not just for making telephone calls (Ekine, 2009).11 Data transmissions are the more important aspect of communicating, and the focus of the networking and collective action activities described here. For example, the objective of MobileActive is to assist the ‘effectiveness of NGOs around the world who recognize that the 4.5 billion mobile phones provide unprecedented opportunities for organizing, communications, and service and information delivery’ (‘About MobileActive.org’, 2010). In the language of the social science literature used to contextualize these developments, MobileActive recognizes the opportunities presented by mobile telephony in the development of gov-ernance structures and collective action. Another initiative, Movirtu, expands the use of mobile communication by the rural poor communities in sub-Sahara Africa and South Asia (Movirtu, 2010). Similarly, FrontlineSMS (2010) freely distributes a software pro-gram that enables users to send and receive text messages with large groups of people through mobile phones. Users determine the specific content. Textuality, another initia-tive, offers several programs based on cellular telephony applications. For example, ‘Stop Stock-outs’ is an SMS program to track medicine inventories at the local level in many African villages (Turretini, 2009). ‘Text Messages Across Nigeria’ tracks the dis-tribution of some 63 million mosquito nets. ‘Pill Check’ enables members of the com-munity to visit public hospitals to check the availability of drugs at local clinics and hospital pharmacies (Turretini, 2010). One of Movirtu’s services is called MXPay. Movirtu installs a server in a mobile operator’s switching center that provides access to basic mobile banking services for those who do not own a mobile handset, a SIM card, or do not have a bank account.12 Users are assigned a number and a password that enables them to log in to the system by way of any available handset. Those who lend their phones receive an airtime top-up credit, which is calculated as a percentage of the trans-action.13 The system can also be used to distribute funds to recipients by aid agencies. What these examples have in common is the use of networks. Through distributed prob-lem solving, networks identify problems, monitor conditions, and implement solutions.

Networks and the power of networks involve more than a single technology. In 1999, a company called Space Imaging launched the world’s first privately owned and oper-ated high-resolution remote sensing satellite.14 It offered customers 1-m panchromatic satellite images and other value-added products (such as a variety of GIS layered maps and three-dimensional perspectives). Put simply, with the fleet of remote sensing satel-lites that have been launched since 1999, private organizations, news media, and even individuals have access to satellite imaging capacity well under 1-m resolution.15 As a result, the Iranian nuclear program was revealed in 2003 by an NGO, not the US or any other country (Aday and Livingston, 2009). The technology removed an old obstacle to collective action. Previously, nuclear nonproliferation advocates such as the Federal of America Scientists had to rely on trickles of information from state institutions. This is an example of costly information. The required information for technical analyses of potential nuclear sites is now readily available at little to no cost.

There are other examples of networked collective action in low-cost information environments. Geographic Information Systems (GIS), the geospatial data management software used to add value to the data collected by remote sensing satellites, has also advanced in its sophistication and ease of use. Google Earth is probably the most com-monly seen example of GIS. GIS and remote sensing have been paired with cellular




telephony and geographical positioning satellites (GPS) to create crowdsourcing solutions to pressing social needs, such as human rights monitoring and disaster response.16 Those who are involved in the use of cellular telephony and GIS are often referred to as ‘crisis mappers’.

Ushahidi – ‘testimony’ in Swahili – is a crisis-mapping website developed by Kenyans to track violence following the flawed 2007 elections (BBC, 2008). Using reports sub-mitted via the web and mobile phone – 45,000 in all, a GIS map was created to visualize patterns of violence. The service has since grown to a worldwide movement of volun-teers and users. For example, in South Africa it was used to track xenophobic violence. A more advanced version of the software was deployed to monitor violence in the eastern Congo in 2009, while Al Jazeera used it during the Israeli invasion of Gaza in 2009.

Other GIS crowdsourcing services exist, including MapBox. It uses a program called ‘TileMill’ (Mapbox, 2009) to create maps using any geographic data set. As with Ushahidi, the maps are dynamic presentation spaces that update events as often as the reports come in from mass distributed nodes (cell phones). Voix des Kivus provides a technology to populations in South Kivu in the eastern Congo that allows them to post accounts of events, such as outbreaks of disease, crop conditions, and violence (Columbia Center for the Study of Development of Strategies, 2010).

How can we think about 4.5 billion nodes, along with the other means by which mas-sively distributed connections create a global chain of connectivity? I take that question up in the next section.

Information environments and technology

In this section, I argue that the key variable to our analysis is not found in a specific technology, such as global television, cellular telephony, GIS, GPS, or any other stand-alone ICT. Rather, it involves an awareness of the characteristics of an information envi-ronment created by the totality of technologies in a given era, as adapted to particular economic, cultural and social needs, and in alignment with the social and political insti-tutions present in that environment (Livingston and Klinkforth, forthcoming). When speaking to this point, parallel research literatures in sociology, network theory and inter-national affairs refer to information ecologies, information regimes, digital formations, and the space of flows (respectively, Levy, 2001; Bimber, 2003; Latham and Sassen, 2005; Castells, 1996). All have to do with the obstacles and opportunities for collective action, that is to say the nature of organizations and institutions associated with a given array of technologies.

Castells (1996), for example, argues that information networks redefine and recast the structure of society. By social structure, he means the social and organizational relation-ships in production and consumption, experience, and power that provide the contours of human experience. Put less abstractly, Castells argues that all human relationships are now global in scale (though significant populations are left off the grid and out of the global market of goods, services, and ideas) and facilitated by the flow of information made possible by technology.

Similarly, Latham and Sassen (2005) argue that information and communication tech-nologies enable new forms of political organization and action, what they call ‘digital



Livingston 27

formations’: ‘The distinctiveness of digital formations can contribute to the rise of social relations and domains that would otherwise be absent’ (p. 6, emphases in original). The flow of digital information and the social structures they create contribute to the rise of new social relations.

Bimber (2003) refers to information regimes when speaking of a particular moment of technology and information that facilitates the formation of new associations and actions. The dominant properties of information determine the nature of an information regime. An information regime also reflects a set of opportunities and constraints on the management of information created by these properties; and, finally, the appearance of ‘characteristic political organizations and structures adapted to those opportunities and constraints’ (p. 18). In short, the nature of collective action and governance changes in accordance with the nature of the information regime.

The key independent variable is not technology, per se, but the nature of social and political organization and qualities of collective action specific to the contours of oppor-tunities and constraints emerging from dominant technologies. Bimber notes, for exam-ple, that in the anti-WTO protests in Seattle in 1999, ‘peripheral organizations and ad hoc groups’ used information technology to ‘undertake the kind of political advocacy that traditionally has been the province of organizations with far greater resources and a more central position in the political system’ (p. 2).

Fundamental shifts in available technologies alter information regimes. Bimber calls these shifts ‘information revolutions’: ‘An information revolution disrupts a prior infor-mation regime by creating new opportunities for political communication and the orga-nization of collective action’ (p. 18). He adds: ‘These changes create advantages for some forms of organization and structure and disadvantages for others, leading to adap-tations and change in the world of political organizations and intermediaries’ (p. 18).17

Bimber is interested in the evolution of information regimes in a single location – the US. From this perspective, regimes come in a linear progression, with change precipi-tated by information revolutions. Our more comparative perspective benefits from a change in metaphors, one that captures the interplay among different information envi-ronments accorded different obstacles and opportunities for collective action. Different information environments sit astride one another, influencing one another, and infiltrat-ing one another.18 As we saw in our review of NGO projects intended to expand the availability and use of cellular telephony, technologically underdeveloped locations are ‘seeded’ by other more advanced information regimes, with NGOs, commercial compa-nies, and international organizations as change agents.

Rather than regimes, Levy (1999) speaks of communications ecologies. From this perspective, we might think of the interaction and adaptations of ecosystems as a meta-phor for talking about change and adaptation in ‘infosystems’. An ecosystem is an area within the natural environment in which abiotic factors, such as rocks and soil interact with the biotic, such as plants and animals, within a habitat to create a stable system. In a similar way, myriad factors that are analogous to abiotic elements of an ecosystem, such as literacy rates, urbanization, availability of electricity, roads, cellular networks, to name just a few, affect the ‘biotic’ qualities of an infosystem – the nature of collective action and organizational structures. To understand tree growth one must factor in soil type, moisture content, slope of the land, forest canopy closure, and other local




site variables, as well as complex global factors such as climate change. Likewise, to understand an infosystem requires consideration of local factors and global systems. New technologies push – or are pushed – into bordering infosystems.

Technologies are expressed and adopted in different ways and put to different pur-poses according the needs of local users. There is an indeterminate quality to technolo-gies that challenges our attempts to offer universal declarations of cause and effect. Possibilities are opened up with technologies, though whether those possibilities are realized is the consequence of other factors:

Gutenberg’s press did not determine the crisis of the Reformation, the development of modern European science, or the rise of Enlightenment idealism and the growing power of public opinion in the eighteenth century; it only conditioned them. It remained an essential element of the global environment in which these cultural forms arose. (p. 7)

In this regard, infosystems are fluid and adapted to the needs and circumstances of com-munities embedded in their own unique realities. Mobile telephony in the West is used to make deals, stay in touch with loved ones, serve as a mobile access point for social media, and as a gaming platform. In the eastern Congo, cellular networks are used for basic banking needs, to report rapes and other forms of violence, and even establish a basic form of identity.19

Yet despite these alternative expressions of digital capabilities, all are a part of a global network that looks and behaves as a complex adaptive system (Miller and Page, 2007). Adaptability sometimes comes in the form of organizational structures that reflect opportunities for collective action, as Bimber and others have noted. Another character-istic has been referred to by sociologist Sidney Tarrow (2005: 120–140) as ‘scale shift-ing’. Scale shifting opens up the possibility that state institutions will be bypassed altogether in networked flows of images, words, and other symbols. As state structures are bypassed, traditional media institutions are as well. This possibility goes beyond consideration of the CNN effect, at least as traditionally understood. Rather, it means that significant communicative acts with political and social effects bypass states and tradi-tional media alike. Examples of scale shifting include the use of Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to bypass Iranian state authorities when transmitting images and accounts of political protests in 2009 (Livingston and Asmolov, 2010).

Even in the eastern Congo, something like scale shifts occur. There, the problem does not relate to blocking state authorities, and the shifts do not usually come in the form of YouTube posting. Instead, Western reporters tell of collecting hundreds, even thousands of cell phone numbers from people living in villages found miles from the nearest road (Fessy, 2010; Gettleman, 2010; Zajtman, 2010). ‘I’ve gotten a telephone call from a par-ish priest out in the bush saying, “I’m hiding under my bed. We’re under attack”’ (Zajtman, 2010).

Discussion

Several immediate benefits emerge when the CNN effect research agenda is recast in this way. First, it allows us to tap into intellectual currents shared by several social



Livingston 29

science disciplines, including sociology, political science, behavioral economics, network theory, theories of contentious politics, geography, and international relations. Even technical fields such as engineering, computer science, and software development come into play.

Second, it helps us resolve complex definitional problems about media delivery sys-tems and content that have arisen since the early stages of CNN effects research. We can no longer speak of television as a sui generis medium, as we once did when discussing the CNN effect. Television, YouTube, Twitter, Hulu, and Facebook, to name but a few options, straddle the blurred borders of digital content.

Third, as with all television programming in the 1990s and before, CNN directed content at audiences. Today, digital media are interactive and the distinction between producer and consumer is blurred. As a result, content is often caught up in a recursive process of saliency reinforcement by both new media, such as Twitter and YouTube, and traditional media, such as CNN. Traditional media alert audiences to the existence of new media content online, while new media content feeds traditional media. Recasting research as I suggest here helps researchers account for these changes.

Fourth, a recasting of the research question also encourages consideration of the tem-poral complexities of contemporary digital media, complexities that had not emerged during the early years of CNN effects research. Although the immediacy of real-time television coverage of events around the world was a key element of television’s pre-sumed effects on policy processes, newer twists in the experience of time had not emerged. This has changed, as Castells (2000) notes:

The mixing of times in the media, within the same channel of communication and at the choice of the viewer/interactor, creates a temporal collage, where not only genres are mixed, but their timing becomes synchronous in a flat horizon, with no beginning, no end, no sequence. The timelessness of multimedia’s hypertext is a decisive feature of our culture, shaping the minds and memories of children educated in the new cultural context. (p. 492)

The ‘real-time’ element of global media is but one temporal phase, and perhaps not even the most important one.

Fifth, the nature of publics is altered by global information flows and scale shifting, or what Rosenau calls ‘distant proximities’. The shared norms, values and affective attachments emerging from common socialization experiences in what Benedict Anderson calls ‘imagined communities’, the nation-states that rose in the 18th century with the development of print capitalism and the vernacular press, are no doubt still cen-tral to identity. People are most centrally members of a public defined by the accident of birth and geographical proximity. Identities are still mostly rooted in a common language and shared physical place. Yet the depth of these attachments has weakened. The blend-ing of local and global experience through global networks is that:

coherence and boundaries of cultures, like those of states, have become porous and often frayed as other norms and practices intrude through the circulation of ideas and pictures from abroad, the mobility upheaval, the organizational explosion, (and) the diverse products of a global economy. (Rosenau, 2003)




Bennett (2004) speaks to a similar point about the changing nature of publics when discussing the emergence of transnational social movements:

Loose activist networks adopting self-organizing communication technologies and advocating multiple issues, multiple goals, and flexible identities not only challenge previous organizational forms of transnational activism. These networks also challenge social movement theories that focus on brokered coalitions, ideological framing, and collective movement identities fashioned around national politics. (p. 213)

Publics, in short, are constructed around shared norms and values but without the pre-viously necessary supposition of geographical proximity. This opens new fields of ‘public opinion’ and information (media) research, though conceived of in almost entirely new ways.

These are a few of the possible benefits to a recasting of the research questions asked about media. Yet what about the second half of the CNN effects research agenda: policy? What are some of the possible benefits to our consideration of policy processes?

First, redirecting the CNN effects research along the path I have suggested encour-ages consideration of governance, a concept that, while inclusive of state policy dynam-ics, opens up consideration of other important actors.20 The locus of authority for global governance is more diffuse than before. States are not going to disappear anytime soon, if they ever do, but they are no longer alone in addressing global challenges. Tarrow speaks of ‘complex internationalism’ and O’Brien of ‘complex multilateralism’ (O’Brien et al., 2000). ‘International institutions have emerged at the core of an increasingly com-plex international society around which NGOs, social movements, religious groups, trade unions, and business groups cluster’ (Tarrow, 2005: 27).

As originally conceptualized, governance was closely linked to the effectiveness of governments. In 1992, Rosenau and Czempiel pointed to new forms of ‘governance without government’. Global problem solving and coordination of collective action included a greater array of non-state actors than many had previously recognized. In the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, far from the poorly functioning capital Kinshasa, governance, thin in places as it is, comes from UN agencies and logisti-cal structures, and from a host of NGOs operating in the area (The International Rescue Committee, 2010; see also http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/monuc/, accessed May 2010). As Rosenau remarks in Distant Proximities (2003), his magisterial treatment of politics in a networked world:

A broad conception of governance also requires breaking out of the conceptual jails in which we have long been ensconced. To do so it is useful to start at the beginning and treat politics and governance as social processes that transcend state and societal boundaries so thoroughly as to necessitate the invention of new (conceptual) wheels. (p. 394)

Though rarely recognized by establishment international relations theorists, the CNN effect research agenda concerns questions about the nature of the international system of governance. The reformulation I offer here presents a necessary corrective to an uncriti-cal acceptance of a single strain of international relations theory – structuralism, or what is most commonly called neorealism. Neorealists underplay human agency, values,



Livingston 31

norms of behavior and conduct. In their view, the international system is populated by formally equal sovereign states situated in a system of anarchy. States therefore act according to the logic of self-help; they must not subordinate their own interest to the interest of others (Mearsheimer, 2003; Waltz, 1979). Survival, often by military means, is the paramount imperative of states. In this respect, the CNN effect can be understood as a hypothesis concerning ‘noise’ in a system of power balancing among nation states. Global media create pressures that are said to skew calculations of national interest (Miller, 2007). In short, media content was a distraction from the pursuit of national interest that is essential for survival in a power system situated in anarchy.

Other theoretical constructs see the world – and media’s role in it – differently. Keohane and Nye (1989[1977]), for example, offer a ‘complex interdependence’ model of international affairs, what is more often called ‘neoliberalism’. Various, complex transnational connections (interdependencies) between states and nonstate actors are rooted in at least semi-cooperative relations governed by norms and regimes. Military capabilities play a diminished role in such a system, at least insofar as states find a basis for cooperation. Second, international relations constructivist theory places an even greater value on the creation and propagation of norms and values (Biersteker and Weber, 1996; Finnemore, 1996; Wendt, 1992). Just as political communication research would benefit from a greater awareness of its fit with the various streams of international rela-tions thought, both neoliberalism and constructivism would benefit from a richer theo-retical understanding of media (or ICT). This presents an underdeveloped opportunity for cross-disciplinary research and collaboration.

I have argued that changes in ICT and, consequently, the nature of global governance call for a recasting of the core research questions of CNN effects research. It seems quite clear that one possible cost associated with the adoption of my call for a new research paradigm is the discontinuity with past research findings. We seem not to be talking about the same research. One might also fear a loss of parsimony. There is, to be sure, parsimony in past theoretical constructs. Is there evidence that content X, presented as it was, led to policy outcome Y? Speaking of infosystems and governance structures dimin-ishes this elegance. Two responses come to mind, though neither can be explored in depth in the space available.

First, there is nothing in what I have said that calls for a wholesale abandonment of key elements of past research design. Scholars can still untangle discrete policy decisions, though hopefully with an awareness that policy now is the product of ‘com-plex internationalism’ or ‘complex multilateralism’ (O’Brien et al., 2000). We can still focus on television, though with an awareness that ‘television’ comes in several forms and with different temporal and spatial qualities that complicate a singular focus on immediacy. But turning attention to information environments and gover-nance allows scholars to embrace important questions about nonstate actors and new technologies.

Finally, I would say that instead of thinking of my suggestions as a call to recast the CNN effects paradigm, it might be thought of as a recognition that CNN effect research-ers have been at the forefront of a prescient examination of the effects of ICT (early SNG systems) on forms of global governance. Complex internationalism and the rise of net-worked systems of governance created by ICT’s conditioning of new opportunity and




constraints emerged at the dawn of what Castells has called the microelectronic revolution in the 1980s and 90s. Understood in this way, the CNN effects research agenda captured the shift in structures of global governance. It was a move away from hierarchical insti-tutional structure characteristic of what Bimber calls the third information regime, to the fourth information regime. In the former, information is costly, scarce and organized and maintained by hierarchical organized structures, such as the formal institutions of nation states. This is the neorealist system of global governance. But in the fourth information regime, what Bimber (2003) calls ‘post-bureaucratic politics’, information is relatively abundant, low-cost, and distributed fluidly among horizontally organized networks (p. 104). This is, it seems, what George Kennan and other realists residing in the halls of institutional power sensed in 1993. A new system of global governance was emerging.

My call, therefore, is to continue the prescient, groundbreaking research that has always characterized the field. To do anything else would be to turn our backs on our own accomplishments.

Notes

1. For a wonderful exegesis of the literature, see Gilboa (2005). 2. Computer scientist Tim Berners Lee wrote a proposal in March 1989 for what would even-

tually become the world wide web. The web however, did not begin to grow until Mosaic became available in early 1993.

3. In more technical and regulatory terms for which there is no space for further discussion in this article, new instruments of newsgathering are not subject to the same regulatory encum-brances experienced by the satellite uplinks used in the 1990s. Therefore, ease of use and lack of regulation would also be counted among the factors altering the calculus to cover or not cover a remote event or circumstance.

4. For much of my understanding of SNG, I am indebted to Jonathan Higgins for his personal communication and many publications (see Higgins, 2007; see also his newsletter, http://www.beaconseek.com/los.asp).

5. By the end of 1976, there were 120 satellite transponders available over the US. Each of these analog transponders was capable of relaying one television channel. With digital video data compression, several video and audio channels can now travel through a single transpon-der. By 2010, Europe’s Eutelsat constellation alone offered 609 transponders in stable orbit, mostly over Europe, Africa and Asia (see http://www.eutelsat.com/satellites/satellite-fleet.html, accessed 13 May 2010). Starting in 2008, pioneering Intelsat offered another 2175 transponders with coverage around the globe (see http://www.intelsat.com/_files/investors/financial/2008/2Q-2008-Fact-Sheet.pdf, accessed 13 May 2010). As of 2010, there are now approximately 560 satellites operating in earth orbit (see http://www.wisegeek.com/how-many-satellites-are-orbiting-the-earth.htm, accessed 15 May 2010). As important as satellites are to the live remote data transmissions found at the heart of CNN effects research, undersea cable is the more commonly used transmission technology. About 80 percent of global data transmission uses undersea cables (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1JEuzBkOD8, accessed 15 May 2010; see also http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Technology/Pix/pic-tures/2008/02/01/SeaCableHi.jpg, accessed 15 May 2010).

6. In April 2001, CNN producer/correspondent Lisa Rose Weaver used a videophone to trans-mit live images of the release of the crew members of an American surveillance plane from Hainan Island. These images were thought to be the first unauthorized live television pictures ever transmitted from China.



Livingston 33

7. Perhaps the best way to appreciate this technology is to watch a video demonstration (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VNDG403axQ&NR=1; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc2FtBT6lFQ&feature=related; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmTM-32WydQ&feature=related).

8. The number of rising mobile phone companies operating in Africa, the Middle East, and the Americas is quite long and impressive (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_net-work_operators_of_the_Americas; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_network_operators_of_the_Middle_East_and_Africa, accessed 17 May 2010).

9. Ibrahim founded Mobile Systems International in 1989 and Celtel in 1998.10. This section of my article reflects several weeks of field research in Senegal, Nigeria, Kenya,

the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and South Africa. I would like to thank the Africa Strategic Research Center for its generous support of my work. This section also reflects experiences in Afghanistan in 2009 and 2010. That work was supported by the Cana-dian International Development Agency.

11. This is true in the US, too. Calling is no longer the principal function of mobile devices (see Wortham, 2010).

12. MXPay is similar to other cell phone-based banking services, except for the phone-sharing feature. The most well-known and widely used is M-Pesa in Kenya (http://www.safaricom.co.ke/index.php?id=745, accessed 18 May 2010). MTN Mobile Money is another example (http://www.mtn.com/ProductsServices/MTNMobileMoney, accessed 18 May 2010).

13. See http://movirtu.com/index.html, accessed 18 May 2010. Because they have fixed resi-dences and lines of credit with a banking service, most Westerners pay their mobile fees at the end of a billing cycle. People in the developing world use pay-as-you-go plans that involve the purchase of minutes preloaded on a sim card. This is sometimes referred to as ‘topping up’. Vendors of minutes and sim cards have become ubiquitous in some African, Indian, and Latin American cities.

14. Space Imaging is now GeoEye Inc. It was formed after Orbital Imaging Corporation (or ORBIMAGE) acquired Space Imaging in 2006 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKONOS, accessed 18 May 2010).

15. For an inventory to 2008, see Stoney (2010).16. The word ‘crowdsourcing’ was coined by Howe (2006). Howe stated that ‘because technology

creates the ability to tap into collective intelligence, the gap between experts and amateurs, qua elements in a collective, has been diminished’ (Brabham, 2008; see also Shirky, 2008).

17. Bimber (2003) emphasizes that he does not equate new technology per se with information revolutions. One cannot simply focus on the latest gadget. His approach instead is to ask when ‘the properties of information and communication have changed abruptly, and then inquiring how such changes influenced politics’ (p. 20).

18. Thinking of it in this way allows researchers to find inspiration in the diffusion of innovation research literature (see Rogers, 1983).

19. People in poor indigenous communities are born and die without the official recognition afforded most persons in developed communities. They do not possess birth certificates, graduation diplomas, marriage certificates, or death certificates. One of the benefits associ-ated with the Movirtu system of ‘cloud telephony’ described earlier is the creation of a new form of identity. Movirtu assigns a unique user number to each customer. In this regard it is analogous to a passport number or a national identity number. This may be the only ‘official’ identification ever given to some customers. I wish to thank Jose Pablo Baraybar, Executive Director of Equipo Peruano de Antropologia Forense (EPAF), for helping me understand this aspect of life and death for the rural poor. His work as a forensic anthropologist, responsible for identifying the remains of impoverished victims of war all over the world, is made more




challenging by a common lack of official existence in the first place (interview, Lima, Peru, 12 August 2009).

20. A regime is defined by Krasner (1982) as a set of explicit or implicit ‘principles, norms, rules, and decision making procedures around which actor expectations converge in a given issue-area’ (p. 499). This definition is intentionally broad, and covers human interaction ranging from formal organizations, such as states and supra-state organizations, to informal groups. As I emphasize throughout this article, regimes need not be composed of states.

References

‘About MobileActive.org’ (2010) Available at: http://mobileactive.org/aboutAday S and Livingston S (2009) NGOs as intelligence agencies: the empowerment of transnational

advocacy networks and the media by commercial remote sensing in the case of the Iranian nuclear program. Geoforum 40(4): 514–522.

Al Jazeera (2009). Available at: http://labs.aljazeera.net/warongaza/BBC (2008) Kenya’s Dubious Election. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7175694.stmBBC (2009) Mo Ibrahim’s Mobile Revolution. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8309396.

stmBennett WL (2004) Social movement beyond borders: organization, communication, and political

capacity in two eras of transnational activism. In: Della Porta D, Tarrow S (eds) Transnational Protest and Global Activism. Boulder, CO: Rowman & Littlefield, 203–226.

Bier J (2006) Introduction to video compression. EE Times. Available at: http://www.eetimes.com/design/signal-processing-dsp/4013042/Introduction-to-video-compression

Biersteker TJ and Weber C (1996) State Sovereignty as Social Construct. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bimber, B. (2003) Information and American Democracy: Technology in the Evolution of Political Power. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Brabham DC (2008) Crowdsourcing as a model for problem solving: an introduction and cases. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 14(1): 75–90.

Castells M (1996) The Rise of the Network Society (The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Vol. 1), 2nd edn. Cambridge, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Castells M (2000) The Rise of the Network Society (The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Vol. 1), 2nd edn. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

Columbia Center for the Study of Development of Strategies (2010) Event Mapping in Congo. Available at: http://cu-csds.org/projects/event-mapping-in-congo/

Ekine S (ed.) (2009) SMS Uprising: Mobile Activism in Africa. Oxford: Pambazuka Press.Engeler E (2010) Poor but networked: UN says cell phone use surging. Physorg.com, 23 February.

Available at: http://www.physorg.com/news186144656.htmlFessy T (2010) Interview, BBC, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, 13 April.Finnemore M (1996) National Interests in International Society. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University

Press.FrontlineSMS (2010) Available at: http://www.frontlinesms.com/Gettleman J (2010) Interview, The New York Times, Nairobi, Kenya, 23 April.Gilboa E (2005) The CNN effect: the search for a communication theory of international relations.

Political Communication 22: 27–44.Higgins J (2007) Satellite Newsgathering. Woburn, MA: Reed Educational and Professional

Publishing.Higgins J (2008) NAB roundup. Line of Sight 13 (Spring). Available at: http://www.swe-dish.com/

products/suitcase-systems/cct90.html



Livingston 35

Howe J (2006) The rise of crowdsourcing. Wired. Available at http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/crowds.html

Inmarsat (1999) Our Satellites. Available at: http://www.inmarsat.com/About/Our_satellites/default.aspx

Inmarsat (2010). Available at: http://www.inmarsat.com/?language=EN&textonly=FalseThe International Rescue Committee (2010) The IRC in Democratic Republic of Congo. Available

at: http://www.theirc.org/where/congo International Telegraphic Union (2010) The World in 2009: ICT Facts and Figures. Available at:

http://www.itu.int/net/pressoffice/backgrounders/general/pdf/3.pdf Kelly J (2008) Analysis and mapping. Morningside Analytics. Available at: http://morningside-

analytics.comKeohane R and Nye J (1989[1977]) Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition.

Boston, MA: Little-Brown.Krasner SD (1982) Structural causes and regime consequences: regimes as intervening variables.

International Organization 36(2): 497–510.Latham R and Sassen S (2005) Digital formations: constructing an object of study. In: Latham R,

Sassen S (eds) Digital Formations: IT and New Architectures in the Global Realm. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Levy P (1999) Collective Intelligence: Mankind’s Emerging World in Cyberspace. New York: Basic Books.

Levy P (2001) Cyberculture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Livingston S (1997) Clarifying the CNN Effect (Research Paper R-18): Kennedy School of

Government, Harvard University. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Livingston S and Asmolov G (2010) Networks and the future of foreign affairs reporting.

Journalism & Mass Communication 11(5): 745–760.Livingston S and Bennett WL (2003) Gatekeeping, indexing, and live-event news: is technology

altering the construction of news? Political Communication 20(4): 363–380.Livingston S and Eachus T (1995) Humanitarian crises and U.S. foreign policy: Somalia and the

CNN effect reconsidered. Political Communication 12(4): 413–429.Livingston S and Klinkforth K (forthcoming) Narrative power shifts: exploring the role of ICTs

and informational politics in transnational advocacy. Political Communication 6.Livingston S and Van Belle D (2005) The effects of satellite technology on newsgathering from

remote locations. Political Communication 22(1): 45–62.Mapbox (2009) TileMill. Available at: http://mapbox.com/tools/tilemillMearsheimer JJ (2003) The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. New York: W.W. Norton.Miller DB (2007) Media Pressure on Foreign Policy: The Evolving Theoretical Framework.

Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Miller JH and Page SE (2007) Complex Adaptive Systems: An Introduction to Computational

Models of Social Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Movirtu (2010) Movirtu. Available at: http://www.movirtu.com/index-4.htmlNonor D (2009) Ghana: mobile penetration rate to hit 60 percent by end of year. AllAfrica.com.

Available at: http://allafrica.com/stories/200908110996.htmlO’Brien R et al. (2000) Contesting Global Governance: Multilateral Economic Institutions and

Global Social Movements. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Robinson P (2000) The policy–media interaction model: measuring media power during a humani-

tarian crisis. Journal of Peace Research 37(5): 613–633.Robinson P (2002) The CNN Effect: The Myth of News Media, Foreign Policy and Intervention.

London: Routledge.Rogers EM (1983) Diffusion of Innovations. New York: Free Press.




Rosenau JN (2003) Distant Proximities: Dynamics beyond Globalization, illus. edn. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Rosenau JN and Czempiel E (1992) Governance without Government: Order and Change in World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Shales T (1991) On CNN, waiting for Saddam. The Washington Post, 30 January: B1.Shirky C (2008) Here Comes Everybody. New York: Penguin.Singh J and Rosenau J (2002) Information Technologies and Global Politics: The Changing Scope

of Power and Governance. Albany: State University of New York Press.Stoney W (2010) American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing Guide to Land Imaging

Satellites. Available at: http://www.asprs.org/news/satellites/ASPRS_DATABASE_021208.pdfTarrow S (2005) The New Transnational Activism, illus. edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.Turretini E (2009) “Pill-Check” SMS the cure? Textually.org. Available at: http://www.textually.

org/textually/archives/2009/09/024456.htmTurretini E (2010) Parsons Students Use SMS Technology to Get Medicines to African Villages.

Available at: http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/2010/04/025882.htmVardy N (2010) India: The world’s looming #1 cellular market. The Global Guru. Available at:

http://www.theglobalguru.com/article.php?id=88&offer=GURUVon/Xchange (2009) Latin America Mobile Penetration Reaches 80%. Available at: http://www.

von.com/news/2009/07/latin-america-mobile-penetration-reaches-80.aspxWaltz KN (1979) Theory of International Politics. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Pr Inc.Wasserman, E (2001) The videophone war. American Journalism Review. Available at: http://

www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=2780Weiss TG (2000) Governance, good governance and global governance: conceptual and actual

challenges. Third World Quarterly 21(5): 795–814.Weiss TG and Thakur R (2010) The UN and Global Governance: An Unfinished Journey.

Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Wendt A (1992) Anarchy is what states make of it: the social construction of power politics.

International Organization 46(2): 391–425.Wortham J (2010) Cellphones now used more for data than for calls. The New York Times, 13

May. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/14/technology/personaltech/14talk.html?scp=1&sq=cell%20phone%20data&st=Search

Zajtman A (2010) Interview, France 24, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, 13 April.Zakaria F (2008) The Post-American World. New York: W.W. Norton.

Biographical note

Steven Livingston is Professor of Media and International Affairs at the George Washington University where he holds appointments in the School of Media and Public Affairs and the Elliott School of International Affairs.



Documents

Livingston CNN Effect Reconsidered_again_problematizing ICT & Global Governance_2011