Mobile Service Revolution:
CNN Effect Goes Mobile
By Dan Steinbock
During the past two decades, global television, enabled by an
astonishing array of technological devices, has collectively reset
the terms of debate in the foreign affairs arena. Initially, the
perceived impact was called the "CNN Effect," but with the
launch of a number of alternative outlets in multiple geographies,
it has been recently called the "CNN Effect Plus." This
phenomenon is due to new outlets that facilitate television
news reports and information media from distant or inaccessible
locations.
The dramatic transformation has only begun. The discourse
on international affairs is facing still another upheaval,
due to the advent of global real-time television, which is about
to be driven by new mobile services (including advanced
mobile voice, Internet, messaging and content services).
"We're moving from a business of ears to the business of eyes,"
said Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia's senior VP and multimedia chief,
in the late 1990s.2 Over time these mobile services will be available
to a wider range of consumers in different income levels
and in diverse countries around the world.
Improved access to news and information, combined with
faster and easier methods of communication, has already
changed the international political climate and the way in
which governments and officials respond to natural disasters, security emergencies, foreign policy
changes, and social developments. With
the arrival of increasingly advanced
mobile services, changes in the relationship
between politics, technology, and
the international media will be even
more pronounced. The era of "command
and control" is effectively over; the
era of "sense and respond" has arrived.
The advent
of CNN in the 1980s forced a more
complex and challenging information
environment upon American foreign
policy officials. Suddenly policymakers
found themselves operating in a potentially
global media landscape extending
far beyond the three national news networks
and a handful of wire services and
elite newspapers. What began as a business
revolution had a wide array of policy
implications. As CNN began to globalize
and regionalize its services, indigenous
local clones and services followed in its
path, and foreign policy officials in other
nations had to cope with comparable
policy challenges.
For years, media observers in the
United States and abroad have argued
that policies can no longer be presented
to the public in the abstract, and that they
are constantly measured against images
on television-images that are instantly
available, around the clock and around
the globe. The conceptual substance of
the argument was true as early as the mid-
1990s, but the empirical reality was not.
At that time, CNN's coverage of international
events was still limited to a handful
of world cities with periodic attention to
regions in crisis and major catastrophes
in less developed parts of the globe.
Furthermore, the potential of worldwide
transparency has not been matched by actual facts, not least because of the exigencies
of market-driven competition.
For years, critics have argued that the
struggle for higher ratings nullifies the
impact of technology advances. "We live
and die by the size of our audience; we
dumb down the news to pump up the ratings,"
writes Tom Fenton, the CBS News
Senior European correspondent.
Today, CNN and its regional partners
and competitors worldwide are able to
reach beyond the typical handful of metropolitan
areas and report news live
from distant and previously inaccessible
locations. Some of this is the consequence
of advances in news technology,
and some is due to an increase in the
number of news outlets, such as al
Jazeera in the Middle East.
However, despite the hype to the contrary,
global real-time television has yet
to come into being. The enabling technology
is there, but not the consumers.
Until recently, viewers have been chained
to specific locations by relatively immobile
media devices, such as news on TV
sets or Internet-enabled PCs and notebooks.
Now, the collaborative efforts of a
slate of global industry groups are bringing
about a mobile service revolution. It
is these advanced services that will mobilize
international affairs by empowering
people-anytime and anywhere.