Cnn Effect in Somalia: Does News Media Drive Presidential Crisis Rhetoric?

CNN EFFECT IN SOMALIA: DOES NEWS MEDIA DRIVE PRESIDENTIAL CRISIS RHETORIC? BY AUSTIN A ARIANS A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTERS OF ARTS Liberal Arts Studies December 2019 Winston-Salem, North Carolina Approved By: Allan Louden, Ph.D., Advisor Anthony Parent, Ph.D., Chair Michael Hazen, Ph.D. Acknowledgements I would like to thank Dr. Louden for serving as my advisor on this thesis. His guidance, article suggestions, and editing assistance were greatly appreciated. I would also like to thank Dr. Parent and Dr. Hazen for serving on the defense committee. I chose my topic based on courses I took with them that I thoroughly enjoyed. ii Table of Contents Abstract iv Literature Review 2 Crisis Rhetoric: Theoretical Foundation 2 President Obama’s Healthcare Initiative 7 Crisis Rhetoric in the Presidency 12 News Media Framing of Crisis Events 17 The CNN Effect 19 Research Question 22 Background on Somalia 23 Black Hawk Down: Brief Walkthrough of Events 26 Study Object: The Media 40 The Rhetoric 43 Findings 55 Future Rhetoric and Foreign Policy 59 Conclusion 65 Bibliography 66 Curriculum Vitae 69 iii Abstract In my thesis I will discuss how news media correlates with presidential rhetoric in crisis situations. More closely, I will be looking at the crisis in Somalia on October 3rd and 4th 1993, along with President Bush’s and Clinton’s rhetoric before, during and after the crisis. iv Austin Arians CNN Effect in Somalia: Does News Media Drive Presidential Crisis Rhetoric? 1 Literature Review Crisis Rhetoric: Theoretical Foundation Uncertainty and change permeate human history. Presidents as with others, innately face the task of making sense of the world in which citizens reside. The uses for crisis rhetoric often come into play during scandal or emergency. Crisis rhetoric is often used as a way to sway public perception of a President, company or individual. For my thesis, I will be looking at image repair in terms of United States foreign affairs, mainly through presidential crisis rhetoric. According to William L. Benoit in his article Image Repair Discourse and Crisis Communication, “Image is essential to organizations (i.e., corporations, government bodies, non-profit groups) as well as individuals” (Benoit, “Image Repair” 177). Benoit discusses how an image can relate with public relations, because without a good standing image, public perception of you or your organization is going to be unfavorable. The difference from a person to an organization, in terms of crisis rhetoric, is how strategies are put together differently or rolled out with specific configurations to better suit situations. Although I will not be covering an individual’s image, the difference between an organization and an individual lie with the popularity. A well-known actor or actress may need to follow similar image restoration theories that are followed by well-known companies, as the repercussions can be similar. If an actor or actress does not have a good standing image, they may not get jobs, hence losing 2 money. The same goes for companies, as a bad standing image may push customers and potential clients to its competitors. Benoit identifies key components to image discourse theory. Benoit states, “an attack has two components: 1. The accused is held responsible for an action. 2. That act is considered offensive” (Benoit, “Image Repair” 178).” It is only when that organization is believed to be in the wrong that image restoration discourse theory should be administered. Benoit’s article on image restoration discourse discusses a few key details that organizations should think about when implementing image repair discourse. First, he talks about the audience (or audiences) that an organization must directly focus on, the audience that ultimately disapproves of the action and holds the organization accountable with a negative sanction. Second, he argues that perceptions are more important than reality. He backs this statement by saying, “the important point is not whether the business in fact is responsible for the offensive act, but whether the organization is thought to be responsible for it by the relevant audience” (Benoit, “Image Repair” 178). Although it is on occasion, a government may attempt to repair of their national image through crisis management, it has been done before. Saudi Arabia devised a whole campaign in order to repair their image after the events of September 11th, 2001. Saudi Arabia started the campaign because that Saudi Arabia was home to fifteen of the nineteen hijackers while over 100 Saudi citizens made up the bulk of the Afghanistan war prisoners that were detained at 3 the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay (Zhang & Benoit 161). Benoit’s then discusses the message options available to organizations. Five broad image repair strategies that respond to such threats are: denial, evasion of responsibility, reduction of offensiveness, corrective action and mortification. Benoit provides examples to illustrate the theory. Although all five are important to the theory of image repair discourse, I will cover the ones that appear later all in this paper. Denial Denial, according to Benoit, is where “a firm may deny that the act occurred, that the firm performed the act, or that the act was harmful to anyone” (Benoit, “Image Repair” 179). Denial has two variants. For example Benoit Pepsi accused Coke of gathering other accounts to pay higher prices, allowing Coke to subsidize prices for their largest customer, McDonalds. Coke denied such claims saying price increases were universally applied across the board and that there were no exceptions. Using the denial tactic allowed organizations to refute both what had happened and it’s harmful effects. Another form of denial, according to Benoit, is shifting the blame. His example was the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The Chair of Exxon stated that after the spill, he could not get authorization from the state or the coast guard to start the process. Since they are not to blame for being delayed, their image should not be hurt. (Benoit, “Image Repair” 179-180) Evasion of Responsibility 4 Benoit defines evasion of responsibility as “a firm can say its act was merely a response to another’s offensive act, and that the behavior can be seen as a reasonable reaction to that provocation.” (Benoit, “Image Repair” 180) Benoit suggests that Evasion of Responsibility has four variations. In the first version, Benoit states that a company/government/persons behavior is in response to a different party’s actions. For example, an organization may have some negatively viewed behavior due to a law passing. Basically, they are saying if a law had not been passed, the behavior would not have happened. Second, Benoit discussed defeasibility. This tactic suggests an organization does not have certain information; therefore, they cannot be held accountable. The example used by Benoit is if a business manager missed a meeting because he had not been informed it was moved up a day. If the information was, in fact, not received, his “not knowing” should be excused. The third form of evasion of responsibility would be that the act was an accident. The organization tries to persuade the audience that the act was an accident, and if successful, the organization should be held less accountable. Last, would be an organization stating that they were looking out for the best interest of everyone involved through their act or behavior. Organizations must explain to audiences that though the behavior or act was considered negative, they were just looking out for all involved. (Benoit, “Image Repair” 180) Reduction of Offensiveness Benoit argues in his article, “a company that is accused of wrongful 5 actions can also try to reduce the perceived offensiveness of that act” (Benoit, “Image Repair” 180). He states there are six different versions of reducing offensiveness, but I will focus on the three that can be argued later. Bolstering is the first way to reduce offensiveness. According to Benoit, may be used by a party “to strengthen the audience’s positive feelings toward itself, in order to offset the negative feelings connected with the wrongful act” (Benoit, “Image Repair” 180). If the audience acquires these positive feelings, it should offset most damage done to a reputation. The second way to reduce offensiveness, according to Benoit is through minimization. A party would state that the wrongful act is not actually as bad as it seems. Benoit uses an example in his article in which a company that may test products on animals may argue that the benefits from research done to the animals may outweigh the harm done to those animals (Benoit, “Image Repair” 181). The last form of reducing offensiveness that I will cover is transcendence. Transcendence, according to Benoit, is when a party “attempts to place the act in a more favorable context Corrective Action Corrective action, according to Benoit, is when an organization tries to restore their image by promising to correct the wrong behavior or act. This action would not only correct the previous act or behavior, which is seen negatively by audiences, but also take steps necessary to prevent these actions from ever 6 happening again. (Benoit, “Image Repair” 181) Compensation According to Benoit, “compensation is the final form of reducing offensiveness. If it is acceptable to the victim, the firm’s image should be improved.” (Benoit, “Image Repair” 181) Benoit uses an example, “if disabled people were denied admittance to a movie theater. An official later apologized and offered them free passes to a future movie to help compensate them for this offensive act.” (Benoit, “Image Repair” 181) President Obama’s Healthcare Initiative Benoit also looks at each use of image repair discourse in presidential rhetoric in an article titled “President Barack Obama’s Image Repair on HealthCare.gov.” In this article, Benoit discusses how President Obama used image repair discourse to help get his approval rating up.

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