U.s. Media Research, Interact With The Government

U.S. is as know as a super media country in the world. U.S. media, characterized by political, is not only a carrier to inherit, exchange and innovate culture, but also a main participant to make foreign policy and pursue national interests, which deeply influence the internal and external affairs of government.U.S. media play an important role in U.S. government's internal and external affairs. It has become a main basis for U.S. government decision because of its powerful information and quick response. During the war time, U.S. government official including president get new international information to make foreign policy through the media. Media has been involved more often in foreign policy decision. Even though the media doesn't have the right to set foreign agenda for government, it has an indirect influence on government foreign agenda by guiding public opinion. Whether the government gets the support of public opinion depends on media's key role in foreign policy-making process. At the same time, U.S. media functions as a watchdog over government internal and external affairs for the purpose of national interests. However, the supervisory function of the media is limited because they share the same values.U.S. media is the freest media in the world under the protection of the Constitution. But it doesn't mean that the government can not affect and use the media in other way. U.S. government usually makes use of media to get the support of public opinion when making an important foreign policy and guides the media by controlling the source of information or even reveals some of secret information intentionally because they know the media can not be lived without information. In Iraq War, U.S. government use a set of rules,"embedding"strategy, stated in detail from the reporters to the reporting rules, to set the media agenda. It could serves as a successful try of controlling over media, which carried out a pioneering operation to cooperate with the army and the media.Many factors are affecting the relations between U.S. media and government. From the standpoint of cooperation, these factors includes: national interests, values, monopolies control and the interdependence. From the standpoint of conflict, these factors includes: the way to realize national interests, economic interests behind negative reports, media's watchdog function and factions of mainstream media.The relations between U.S. media and government are too complex to summarize in a word. They both cooperate and conflict, their relations can not simply summarized as supervise or make use of. They influence and constrain each other and keep the balance of media and government carefully.