Tool of the state or of the people?

Aday and Livingston make an important distinction between the different roles the media can play according to the type of event that is being covered – whether the media functions as a state apparatus, or if it provides a wide range of viewpoints that challenges statist discourse. Though the media can certainly serve as a government mouthpiece during extreme circumstances such as state emergencies, or in political environments such as censorship in China, one cannot ignore the role of transnational advocacy organizations in framing, supplementing, and sometimes serving as a foil for official discourse. However, I would like to add the capacity of local citizens and grassroots movements in contributing to the discourse on the more personal, local level as well. Though they are not necessarily part of an epistemic community considered experts on particular issues, the authenticity of those who live in the reality in question lend an authority that cannot be disregarded.

This is perhaps seen most clearly in the media attention generated by news of Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Peace Prize. That the news spread even amongst the Chinese people who are under heavy censorship and state propaganda may be attributed in large part to citizens who utilized social media to subvert the state media apparatus. This affair also demonstrates how “[transnational advocacy organizations] are able to overcome the ‘deliberate suppression of information that sustains many abuses of power’. They can ‘help reframe international and domestic debates…when they succeed, advocacy networks are among the most important sources of new ideas, norms, and identities in the international system” (Aday & Livingston, 2008). Thus, IR theorists and media scholars must reconcile the different functions of global media based on the circumstance, and recognize the power of citizen journalism and activism to impact global discourse as well.