The 24-hour international television news channel Cable News Network (CNN) had a major impact on the conduct of United States foreign policy in the late Cold War period; 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. The term's coinage reflects the role played by CNN in particular, whose coverage of many events outside the U.S. – such as 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 these images and issues to the immediate forefront of the American political consciousness. Additionally, the CNN effect has been cited as the driving force behind the U.S. intervention in the Kurdish crisis and the use of force by the U.S. Army during the Bosnia war of 1992–1995.