Issue April 2008: Table of Contents
Andrew Hoskins, Barry Richards, and Philip Seib
Editors' note
Patriotism meets plurality: reporting the 2003 Iraq War in the British press
Peter Goddard
University of Liverpool, UK, P.Goddard@liverpool.ac.uk
Piers Robinson
University of Manchester, UK, piers.robinson@manchester.ac.uk
Katy Parry
University of Liverpool, UK, katy.parry@liverpool.ac.uk
In this article, the authors draw upon the results from a substantial content and framing analysis of the British media's treatment of the 2003 Iraq War to show how Britain's national press managed their coverage of the initial combat phase of the war against the background of substantial public and elite opposition. They show that reporting was dominated by coverage of the ongoing battle, that newspapers offered a similar subject agenda to one another and that coalition actors were prominent and likely to be reported neutrally. But the article uncovers a substantial diversity of opinion and tone across the British press and identifies five different editorial approaches to the conflict which are sustained across the news and editorial pages of different newspapers. Through a closer examination, the authors attempt to account for the existence of these approaches in relation to the effects of public opposition to the war, patriotism and newspapers' longstanding political allegiances. Finally, they suggest that, in the British press at least, this plurality of opinions and forms of coverage offers a challenge to longstanding assumptions about the extent to which the media have tended to offer support to official positions in relation to war.
Key Words: Britain • Iraq War • media • newspapers • patriotism • war
Television journalism during terror attacks
Kirsten Mogensen
Roskilde University, Denmark, kmo@ruc.dk
This article views television news coverage of ongoing terrorist attacks and their immediate aftermath as a special genre within journalism, and describes norms connected with the genre. The description is based on qualitative analyses of the coverage on the major American networks in the first 24 hours after the events on September 11, 2001, and on semi-structured personal interviews with 37 journalists who covered the events for ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC and FOX News. In accordance with legal and moral philosopher Alf Ross, each of the norms was expressed as a directive in the interviews and also reflected in the journalistic practices. The described norms form a coherent pattern if safeguarding the existing democracy and the general public is considered to be the main purpose. A coverage based on this pattern of norms can be compared to other forms of crisis management following attacks because it counteracts well known symptoms of national crisis.
Key Words: 9/11 • crisis manager • genre • journalism • professional norms • Alf Ross • television • terror
Psychosocial resilience in the face of a mediated terrorist threat
Pieter A. Maeseele
Ghent University, Belgium, Pieter.Maeseele@UGent.be
Gino Verleye
Ghent University, Belgium, Gino.Verleye@UGent.be
Isabelle Stevens
Ghent University, Belgium, Isabelle.Stevens@UGent.be
Anne Speckhard
Georgetown University Medical School, Athens, Greece, ASpeckhard@AnneSpeckhard.com
After 9/11, studies concerning psychological and psychiatric effects of terrorism have greatly multiplied. Media exposure to terrorism has been shown to be a vital factor in these effects. However, there is a lack of pre-trauma research assessing the resilience of the civilian population in the face of a `mediated' terrorist threat. This article discusses an eight-dimensional conceptual model of terrorism-related issues central to psychosocial resilience to terrorism. Survey results (N = 1040) are provided which present an index of these terrorism-related issues for Flanders (Belgium) in December 2004 and January 2005 and their correlations. They are also related to media use in the case of television, radio and the internet. The results clearly indicate the psychological repercussions of this terrorism threat in terms of media information-seeking behavior, risk perception and fear levels. Furthermore, the important role of government communication, the ambiguity of social support and the opposing outcomes of television and internet use are demonstrated.
Key Words: Belgium • communication • media • resilience • risk • terrorism
No one's looking: the disappearing audience for war
Susan L. Carruthers
Rutgers University, USA, scarruth@andromeda.rutgers.edu
The Iraq war has generated an abundance of documentary films, supplemented by a small but growing number of Hollywood features. Yet American audiences for imagery from, of, or about the US enterprise in Iraq are remarkably scant. This article ponders the implications of this collective aversion to inspecting the war and its consequences. Setting popular `reluctance to see' in historical context, the author suggests that the current moment is sui generis: a challenge to media scholars to re-examine prevailing paradigms and to historicize the specificities of anemic contemporary `anti-war' sentiment.
Key Words: anti-war sentiment • audience • documentary film • Iraq • media scholars • war
Media between warmongers and peacemakers
Cees J. Hamelink
University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, hamelink@antenna.nl
This article addresses key assumptions about the role of media in conflict prevention and proposes to be deeply skeptical about these assumptions which project onto information and communication unrealistic expectations about their impact on human relations. Although there may be doubts about the media's peacemaking potential, it can be demonstrated that news media can make matters a lot worse and can certainly contribute to the escalation of group conflicts into mass killings. This is especially so when media workers become agents for the dissemination of the `elimination belief' and when media are intentionally used as weapons to incite people to commit crimes against humanity. It is therefore of utmost importance that public expressions of elimination beliefs are spotted — and subsequently exposed! — as early as possible. An International Media Alert System (IMAS) is needed to monitor media contents in areas of conflict. This system would provide an `early warning' where and when media set the climate for crimes against humanity and begin to motivate people to kill others.
Key Words: early warning • elimination belief • genocide • pictures of war
The military and the media: shotgun wedding, rocky marriage, committed relationship
Major General Tony Cucolo
United States Army, anthony.cucolo@us.army.mil
Major General Tony Cucolo, the US Army's Chief of Public Affairs, discusses the war raging on the information domain that places nations at risk as much as any weapon of mass effect or mass destruction, and the critical importance of a sustained, committed relationship between the military and the media. America in particular needs a credible, accountable, and self-policing free press; the US military must continue to move away from a culture of non-engagement and establish strong professional bonds with the media. Both parties should take stock of how each has grown and changed in recent years and re-commit to protect the ideals they defend, each in their own unique way.
Key Words: agenda journalism • censorship • culture • ethics • media • military • relationship • war
Conflict-related media events and cultures of proximity
Ingrid Volkmer
University of Melbourne, Australia, ivolkmer@unimelb.edu.au
The term 'media event' has been coined as a narrative form of mass media communication. The article critically reflects this concept in the context of global public communication. The author argues that a variety of event-spheres can be identified which represent discursive spheres in a global public space.
Key Words: globalization • journalism • media events • political communication • public sphere
Taking the state out of state—media relations theory: how transnational advocacy networks are changing the press—state dynamic
Sean Aday
George Washington University, USA, seanaday@gwu.edu
Steven Livingston
George Washington University, USA, sliv@gwu.edu
Much of the political communication scholarship concerning state—media relations concludes that the media are highly dependent on and even subservient to the state. This is particular true during wartime. Partial and conditionally based exceptions to this general conclusion include event-driven news and the cascade model. We argue that another important exception to standard conclusions regarding state—media relations involves transnational advocacy organizations and epistemic communities.
Key Words: cascade activation • event-driven news • indexing • political communication • satellite technology • transnational advocacy organizations
The role of the media in boosting military spending
Justin Lewis
Cardiff University, UK, LewisJ2@cardiff.ac.uk
Military spending in the USA and the UK is far in excess of defensive needs. The rationale for such spending now has little to do with defence, and is based on the capacity to intervene unilaterally and globally. This rationale, while favoured by political and military elites, has no clear popular mandate. It is here that the media play a role: not in simple-minded boosterism, but in creating a climate in which it is difficult to countenance cutting military budgets. There are four main elements of this unwitting complicity: the news media tend to focus on shortfalls rather excesses in the military budget; they tend to provide few comparative figures that might communicate the size of military budgets; they allow support for the troops to spill over into assumptions about support for military spending; and they allow the establishment of spurious links between the terrorist threat and defence spending.
Key Words: media • military spending • public opinion
Can the information war on terror be won? A polemical essay
Philip M. Taylor
University of Leeds, UK, p.m.taylor@leeds.ac.uk
This polemical essay argues that, despite many presentational mistakes in the West's information war on terror since 9/11, the `propaganda' war is not yet lost. Indeed, it tentatively suggests that although those mistakes have made the task of `winning hearts and minds' in the Islamic world harder and longer, the root cause of failure to date lies with a failure to `know yourself' — i.e. to address those elements, such as foreign policy decisions, which fuel support for Al Qaida. Although the terrorist `organization' has proved exceptionally adept in its own propaganda, it is not just inept western propaganda that lies at the heart of the problem. It is the inability to see yourself as others see you, even if — or perhaps — you disagree with `them'.
Key Words: information war • propaganda • war on terror
Book Reviews
Bill Durodié
Book review: Philip Hammond Media, War and Postmodernity London: Routledge, 2007. viii + 170 pp. ISBN 0 415 37493 6 (hbk), 0 415 37494 4 (pbk)
Mireille Thornton Çolak
Book review: Eric V. Larson and Bogdan Savych Misfortunes of War: Press and Public Reactions to Civilian Deaths in Wartime Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2007. 298 pp. ISBN-10: 0 8330 3897 4; ISBN-13: 978 0 8330 3897 5
James F. Tracy
Book review: Robin Andersen A Century of Media, A Century of War New York: Peter Lang, 2006. xxxi + 350 pp. ISBN 978 0 8204 7893 7 (pbk)
Janet Harris
Book review: Sarah Maltby and Richard Keeble (eds) Communicating War: Memory, Media and Military Bury St Edmunds: Arima Publishing, 2007. 215 pp. ISBN 978 1 8454 9197 0
Katy Parry
Book review: Milena Michalski and James Gow War, Image and Legitimacy: Viewing Contemporary Conflict London: Routledge, 2007. 268 pp. ISBN 0 415 40101 1 (hbk)
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