Week of Jan. 28th Class Summary

The readings in Entman’s Projections of Power and our class discussions on them focused on three case studies of media framing of three U.S. foreign policy initiatives—the American military actions in Grenada (1983), Libya (1986), and Panama (1989-90). Entman shows how the media failed to develop a valid oppositional narrative to counter the narrative framed by the White House in each of these situations. Class discussions elaborated on a number of underlying factors that played a role in ultimately shaping policy, how American power was subsequently projected, and how the American public viewed these events. Indeed, the class discussions demonstrated the iterative nature of the foreign policymaking process, as an analysis of these cases indicated that a number of factors based on other events had considerable impact on these situations, which were far from being isolated cases with one meaningful rationale. For example, the situation in Grenada was far from being a simple Cold War action against communism, but was rather impacted by a variety of issues, among which the class noted as consisting of factors like the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Falkland war, the bombings of U.S. military barracks in Lebanon, the Monroe Doctrine, the legacy of the Vietnam War, and the legacy of the Carter Presidency and the associated feelings of American weakness that the Reagan Administration sought to dispel. The concern over the notion of being aware of “dragons” with respect to dangers of reinterpreting what happened in the past, specifically prior to the Cold War, surfaced in the discussion. Indeed, this leads to the larger question of the ways in which this peril and potential pitfall has arisen in contemporary framing of events in the pre-9/11 world. In what ways have we unconsciously adjusted our views on historical events preceding the September 11th attacks to fit our given post-9/11 mindset and the way in which we currently view the world? At the same time, Entman’s analysis of the prewar debate prior to the Persian Gulf War raises the question of how significant the issue of urgency to act in a given crisis is in framing the debate. In other words, Entman points out how the lack of an urgent and immediate need to act during the debate over the Persian Gulf War provided ample time for the media to investigate matters and for elites to debate issues. Yet this was not the case with respect to the urgent nature of the challenge in the Grenada crisis. Indeed, are we able to see similar parallels in how time may have played a factor in the framing of debates in similar foreign policy crises in near recent times? Just as with the Grenada crisis, a sense of urgency existed prior to the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, due to the immense desire for a swift response to the shocking terrorist attacks on September 11th. However, in the case of the buildup to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, a similar sense of immediate danger did not exist, and as a result, more ample time existed for debate, and hence, the chances for the White House framing of the issue to remain adequately challenged greatly increased. The continued analyses of Entman’s models, historical examples, and case studies, coupled with the success of class discussions in determining issues Entman does not cover, as well as the overall implications and questions raised by the discussions, translate into a stimulating class experience thus far.