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MEDIA OBSERVATIONS ON WORLD OPINION DURING THE KUWAITI CRISIS: POLITICAL COMMUNICATION AND THE EMERGING INTERNATIONAL ORDER
Author(s) -
Rusciano Frank Louis
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
southeastern political review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1747-1346
pISSN - 0730-2177
DOI - 10.1111/j.1747-1346.1996.tb00093.x
Subject(s) - newspaper , sanctions , political science , politics , order (exchange) , isolation (microbiology) , public opinion , international relations , world war ii , political economy , development economics , law , sociology , economics , microbiology and biotechnology , finance , biology
This paper discusses the role of political communication in defining the “post‐Cold War order” by focusing specifically upon the question of the construction of world opinion by different nations' newspapers. The first section analyzes references to world opinion during the pre‐Gulf War Kuwaiti crisis in the New York Times and the Times of India. Topics for discussion include (1) the comparative timing of references to world opinion on the crisis; (2) the comparative emphases on the moral and pragmatic components of world opinion; (3) the two newspapers' evaluations of world opinion on the crisis; and (4) the manner in which both newspapers describe the timing and extent of Iraq's isolation from the world community. The second section correlates these findings with the United Nations activity regarding Iraqi sanctions during the crisis. It is shown that once both newspapers reflected a rough consensus regarding the timing of references to world opinion and the isolation of Iraq, this consensus was reflected in the timing of documents on sanctions in the United Nations. The paper concludes by evaluating the importance of understanding different constructions of world opinion as a means of evaluating the role of political communication in the post‐Cold War order.