Page 100 - The CNN Effect in Action - How the News Media Pushed the West toward War ini Kosovo

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CHAP TE R 5
The Media during the
Kosovo Crisis
After the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords that ended the Bosnian
conflict, Western media attention on the former Yugoslavia declined
notably. The tensions in Kosovo, which were largely peaceful until
1998, had never garnered much Western media interest. There were
too many other hot wars in the former Yugoslavia and other parts
of the world that were more sensational and interesting to the media
throughout most of the 1990s. It was only after the Drenica massacre
of March 1998—the bloodiest incident in Kosovo to that time since
the breakup of Yugoslavia—that some significant Western media
attention began to focus on Kosovo. To assess the potential role of the
CNN effect on governmental actions and policy in the West, it is first
necessary to review Western media coverage of Kosovo.
The CNN effect model, as outlined in chapter 2, requires criteria
from both the media and the government to build evidence in sup-
port of a CNN effect. Chapter 5 focuses primarily on the media
criteria, while chapters 6 and 7 assess the government. In terms of the
media, it was determined that access, unexpected events, and chal-
lenging framing are all essential factors for a possible CNN effect. To
this end, this chapter begins by reviewing Western media coverage (as
represented by American television news) of the Kosovo civil war from
the beginning of 1998 to the last week before the NATO began its air
campaign over the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), in order to
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identify incidents that meet the media criteria. Once potential CNN
effect incidents are reviewed and validated, based on the criteria, they
are then subjected to an assessment that will determine if the events
themselves were the basis of potential political influence or whether
their media coverage is the most important factor. Finally, this chapter
concludes by examining if a media accumulating effect was present