The CNN effect is a theory in political science and media studies that postulates that the development of the popular 24-hour international television news channel known as Cable News Network, or CNN, had a major impact on the conduct of states' foreign policy in the late Cold War period and that CNN and its subsequent industry competitors have had a similar impact in the post-Cold War era. While the free press has, in its role as the "Fourth Estate", always had an influence on policy-making in representative democracies, proponents of the CNN effect argue that the extent, depth, and speed of the new global media have created a new species of effects qualitatively different from those that preceded them historically. The term's coinage reflects the pioneering role played by the network CNN in the field, whose "saturation coverage" of events like the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, the fall of Communism in eastern Europe, the first Gulf War, and the Battle of Mogadishu was viewed as being strongly influential in bringing images and issues to the immediate forefront of American political consciousness and beyond. Despite these origins, the term as used generally refers to a broad range of real time modern media, and is not exclusive to CNN or even 24-hour news cycle broadcast cable news.

Lee Hirsch (born 1972) is a documentary filmmaker. Hirsch is a graduate of The Putney School in Vermont, and a graduate of Hampshire College, in Amherst, Massachusetts. He wrote and directed the documentary Amandla!: A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony.

Hirsch also contributed a chapter to Sound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture (The MIT Press, 2008) edited by Paul D. Miller (DJ Spooky).

His film Bully premiered at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival.. Bully follows several families from across ethnic, cultural and geographic boundaries as they grapple with the tragedy their family has faced as a result of bullying. Several of the families profiled in the film had lost a child because he or she became fed up with the mostly mental and sometimes physical abuse they experienced on a daily, even hourly basis at school, on the school bus, and in their communities.

In a screening in Minneapolis in September 2011, Director Lee Hirsch told the audience during the post-film Q & A that he, himself, had been bullied, and that was part of the inspiration for the film, and for the direction he took it. In an interview with Twin Cities Jewish news website TC Jewfolk after the screening Hirsch continued:

Anderson Hays Cooper (born June 3, 1967) is an American journalist, author, and television personality. He is the primary anchor of the CNN news show Anderson Cooper 360°. The program is normally broadcast live from a New York City studio; however, Cooper often broadcasts live on location for breaking news stories. As of September 2011, he also serves as host of his own eponymous syndicated daytime talk show, Anderson.

Anderson Hays Cooper was born on June 3, 1967, the younger son of the writer Wyatt Emory Cooper and the artist, designer, writer, and heiress Gloria Vanderbilt, and is a great-great-great-grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt of the prominent Vanderbilt shipping and railroad fortune. Cooper's media experience began early. As a baby, he was photographed by Diane Arbus for Harper's Bazaar. He is also a descendant, through his mother, of Brevet Major General Hugh Judson Kilpatrick who was with Union General William T. Sherman in his March through Georgia.

At the age of 3 Cooper was a guest on The Tonight Show on September 17, 1970, appearing with his mother. At the age of 9, he appeared on To Tell the Truth as an impostor. From age 10 to 13 Cooper modeled with Ford Models for Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and Macy's.