In the post-Cold War era, the United States has witnessed a significant shift in the nature of global conflict.

The nuclear and conventional arms race between the U.S. and USSR has largely faded into the background, with the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1991 promising a new chapter of global peace and prosperity. Yet, just a year later, Eastern Europe experienced what would become the first in a troubling series of ethnic cleansings. Our honeymoon with the post-Cold War era had ended. In its place, we are now confronted with a harrowing reality: ethnic genocides emerging as a disturbingly recurrent phenomenon. In the age of interconnectedness, reporting on these genocides has become more accessible than ever before. At no other point in history has America been so conscious of the global distant other. Intuitively, with heightened awareness of events occurring on the other side of the globe, one might expect a corresponding increase in both awareness and intervention in these atrocities. However, in the context of genocide, this broadening of perspective does not necessarily result in actionable empathy. In fact, the media’s true effect on public perceptions and government response to genocide appears to be quite the opposite, as both under-reporting and over-reporting by the media may contribute to apathy among the public and inaction from the government.  

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