Does Obama Deserve Nobel Peace Prize?

Per­cep­tions of the U.S; Nobel Peace Prize Award 

Any caus­es and effects?

In Jour­nal­ism, cor­re­la­tions and link­ages between issues and out­comes are always a point of con­tention. This also applies to the­o­ries and con­cepts relat­ing to mass com­mu­ni­ca­tions and their relat­ed trans­la­tion into issues and pol­i­cy agendas.

In the lead-up to the Novem­ber 2008 U.S pres­i­den­tial elec­tions, an arti­cle I wrote for the Den­ver Urban Spec­trum news­pa­per, Glob­al Atti­tudes Shift About Prospect Of New Pres­i­dent, car­ried the fol­low­ing information:

“With for­eign sup­port for the Unit­ed States hav­ing plunged to its low­est point right after the inva­sion of Iraq in 2003, the 2008 Pew atti­tudes sur­vey, con­duct­ed by the non­par­ti­san Pew Glob­al Atti­tudes Project, revealed a slight improve­ment of U.S. image abroad.

The main rea­son for the improve­ment, the sur­vey shows, is the atten­tion the U.S. pres­i­den­tial elec­tion is get­ting from coun­tries around the world. Com­pared to pre­vi­ous years, the U.S. favor­a­bil­i­ty rat­ing moved up slight­ly among the nations sur­veyed. The biggest improve­ments were seen in Tan­za­nia (19 per­cent), South Korea (12 per­cent), and Poland (7 per­cent), while the worst rat­ings are in Mex­i­co (-9 per­cent) and Japan (-11 percent).”

As if to sup­port some of the argu­ments of the 2008 Pew Glob­al Atti­tudes Project, Media Tenor, which spe­cial­izes in media agen­da-set­ting research, said the fol­low­ing imme­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing the news of Pres­i­dents Obama’s win­ning of the Nobel Peace prize:

“Barack Obama’s 2009 Nobel Peace Prize was based on “his extra­or­di­nary efforts to strength­en inter­na­tion­al diplo­ma­cy and co-oper­a­tion between peo­ples”. Media Tenor’s analy­sis of Pres­i­dent Obama’s image on for­eign pol­i­cy shows that this is tru­ly the case when it comes to Obama’s image in world media mar­kets – but with one big excep­tion – inside the US.”

The arti­cle continued:

“Obama’s great­est strength in for­eign media, is exact­ly the same strength which led the Nobel Prize com­mit­tee to its deci­sion – for­eign affairs. In Mid­dle East­ern, African, and West­ern Euro­pean media mar­kets Obama’s image is dri­ven by between 40–65% of all vol­ume on issues relat­ing to for­eign pol­i­cy with cor­re­spond­ing­ly high rat­ings for the pres­i­dent in those media markets”

Strong or Sub­tle Call to Action? 
In award­ing the Nobel Peace Prize to Oba­ma, was this a strong call to action on many of the issues he has raised before and after he assumed the U.S pres­i­den­cy, or was this a rather sub­tle call to action instead?