Assignment Task:
As a democratic republic founded around The Constitution, the United States of America has a fundamental expectation for elected representatives to make policy decisions around the majority of the public that elected them to their position. Public opinion itself affecting policies within the United States is a key to the foundations of the country. With the advent of social media and mass media influence, however, there are characteristics that make the system difficult to navigate (Wike et al., 2022).
Public opinion should have a large effect on public opinion. Transitively, media influence should reflect the public's opinion. It is a cyclical balance, a "who came first" kind of concept, where public opinion can be affected by the media and vice versa - however, pinpointing where exactly a mass opinion explodes from can be difficult. The difficulty comes with the type of influence that media has in the United States - its biases - when it comes to politically partisan ideologies and ideologues within the government (i.e. left v. right, red v. blue, liberal v. conservative, and "my party member" v. "your party member"). While opinions of the public should be respected and listened to, there is information and planning not privy to the public that must be taken into account when determining key points and topics in national security. Consideration must be taken into account when considering the impact of the public on national security (Newport 2022). When it comes to situations implicitly more complex than they seem (i.e. Israel - Palestine conflict) there are more variables to ingest than just the obvious objections against human rights via Israel against the Palestinians - national security tends to be the caveat. National security policies are not without reasoning, and convincing the public, efficiently and thoroughly, that what is being done is the best in the long term is a difficult task to swallow. Altogether, public opinion on national security should be considered, listened to, and chewed on by policy makers - as that is their ultimate base.
Media influence is arguably a more difficult task to consider since it can flow effortlessly into public opinion (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, etc.) or it can be separated completely (e.g. news outlets). The influence of the media can reflect public opinion and national security interests; however, it can also disagree. It can do both at the same time depending on what news outlet, social media page, or media icon the public and/or national security policymakers are considering! This is all without considering external influence (i.e. foreign internet bots, disinformation campaigns, propaganda, etc.) that may or may not sway public opinion and/or the media's representation of certain U.S. national security policies.
There is no suppressing of the public opinion without violating civil liberties and the 1st Amendment, in my opinion. Media influence is one in the same, however, there are interests within the media world that have concerning outcomes when it comes to public representation of ideas (Kryzanek 2024). Overall, consideration of both public opinion and media is necessary for making sound, agreed-upon national security decisions, however, there are decisions that the US government must make without the general approval of either of those encompassing groups. Send Peers Response with Citation. Need Assignment Help?