This research constitutes the first phase of a project to test theories of policy making and of mass media effects on the foreign policy process which predicts changes in policy officials' national security paradigm due to mass media coverage. The research tests the hypothesis that media coverage of global environmental change has initiated an institutional adaptive response in the form of an expansion of the official paradigm of national security to include environmental threats. In this phase of the research the investigators will conduct in-depth interviews using both structured open and closed-ended questions to determine the depth and conditions of the relationship between media and policy makers paradigm formation, especially between environmental reporting and national security paradigm formation. Of particular interest will be questions relating to which media are most effective in influencing environmental and national security questions, what kinds of issues and under what conditions do media impact policy maker perceptions, the relationship between media impact and other factors such as agency, rank, sex, issue and functional area of responsibility, and appointed versus elected policy makers. This research should provide valuable insights about the use to which policy makers make of media inputs on global environmental change.
