Writing for the peace, without wordings for the Peace: case of Turkish Cypriot Print Media during the Referanda in Cyprus

Researcher: Sevda Alankus
Institution: Eastern Mediterranean Univerisity

Research:
Research examines Turkish Cypriot Print Pro-Peace Media's discourse during the Referanda process in Cyprus in 2004 from Peace Journalistic point of view, arguing that although Turkish Cypriot print media was writing for the Peace right before and after the Referanda in Cyprus, they were not able to promote the peace due to phallogocentric and win-lose make-up of their wording/s. Research paper was presented at "New Media and Middle East Conference", organized by Herzog Center and University of Negev, in Israel (28-29 December, 2004).

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Transporting the Subject: U.S. Technoscience, Militarization, and Cosmopolitan Modernities

Researcher: Karen Caplan
Institution: University of California at Davis

Research:
Transporting the Subject is a book-length project that inquires into ways of seeing that have become integrated into U.S. culture during periods of war. In this work, I am arguing that thrughout the 20th century there has been a link between the research and development of weapons for war and the rise of consumer culture under the sign of nationalism. This project investigates the cultural practices of sight that underpin locating and interpretive sciences such as photogrammetry, chronophotgraphy, remote sensing, and the global positioning system as wellas cultural practices of scale, panorama, and spectacle.

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War and Social Theory

Researcher: Neal Curtis
Institution: Nottingham Trent University

Research:
A book to be published by Palgrave at the end of 2005, exploring ontological issues in war generally, and specifically in relation to the war against terror. The book includes a chapter on cyberwar and the media's (news and entertainment) role in it.                       

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'Visuality and the War on Terror'

Researcher: Andrew Hill
Institution: Centre for Media Research, University of Ulster

Research:
The role that visuality (ways of seeing) has played in the War on Terror, from the attacks of September 11th on to the present. The major outcome of the project is intended to be a book to hopefully appear in 2006.

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American Information Control Policy in Germany (1945-1949) and Iraq (2003-2006).

Researcher: Dr. Cora Sol Goldstein
Institution: California State University at Long Beach

Research: The American occupation of Germany (1945-1949) stands as a model of a successful exercise in democratization by force. In fact, top figures in the Bush administration, have compared the American experiences in postwar Germany and in postwar Iraq. I compare American information control policy in Germany (1945-1949) and Iraq (2003-2006). In Germany, the U.S. Army and the Office of Military Government U.S. in Germany exerted rigorous control over the media to block Nazi and Communist propaganda and to introduce the American political agenda of democratization. In the case of Iraq, the Coalition forces failed to exert a similar degree of information control. As a result of this strategic error, the insurgency and civilian movements opposed to the American presence in Iraq have been able to control information and spread their anti-American messages

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The impact of political transitions in Iraq on the media:
The orientation, ownerships and the role of the new media

Researcher: Jassim M. Jaber
Institution: Ajman University,U.A.E

Research:
After being a country of one party system that run every things including the media for more than a three decades, with the occupation and overthrowing Saddam government, the circumstances in Iraq have been dramatically changed. The impacts went deeply into every aspects of life. For example around 300 political entities fought the latest election, and if we look at the media field, we will find huge amounts of such changes and impacts. Till April 2003 there were no more than five daily newspapers, four radio programs and three TV channels with only one satellite transmission, all run by the government, and the local legislations did not allow people of receiving non Iraqi TV stations via satellites or publishing a newspaper or airing privates programs. It is less than three years since the political situation in Baghdad turned over, the numbers of the daily and weekly publishing sour to reach 295 names, furthermore there are 32 TV channels with more than twenty of them transmits through satellites. This paper, as a part of three phases project, try to examine the impacts of the political transition on the Iraqi media and the role of the media itself in this transitions.

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Imagi-Nations: Lebanese Cinema and National Identity

Researcher: Lina Khatib
Institution: Royal Holloway, University of London

Research:
The research will be published as an authored monograph on Lebanese national identity as imagined in Lebanese cinema from 1975 until today. Since 1975, almost all the Lebanese films made have been about the Lebanese Civil War. The main aim of the book is to establish how different forms of articulation of national identity in the context of war contribute to an understanding of the role of cinema in the construction of national identity. The book therefore offers a re-examination of the different ways that national identity is constructed and communicated through cinema as an art form in the Lebanese context, as well as an examination of different theories on the expression of national identity, and how those theories can be complicated in the context of the Lebanese Civil War. The book is an exploration of the importance of cinema in relation to national imagination, and opens up new perspectives on the socio-political role of cinema in the Arab world.

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The Role of Fixers

Researcher: Jerry Palmer
Institution: London Metropolitan University, City University

Research:
Analysing the role that fixers have played in Western media reporting of events in Iraq since the Anglo-US invasion. The degradation of the security situation, in combination with lack of fluent Arabic comeptence on the part of most western journalists, makes the latter highly dependent on fixers. The research is based on interviews with a selection of western journalists (UK and French) and a selection of fixers. A version of the paper was presented at the 'Translation and Conflict' confernce at Salford Univ. in Novermber, 2004. Jerry is currently working on an update with a different theoretical framework.

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The Cultures of the Foreign News Desk: Comparative US and European National Perspectives

Researcher: Kristina Riegert
Institution: Research Fellow at Swedish National Defence College and
Senior Lecturer at the Media, Art and Philosophy department at Södertörn University College

Research:
"The Cultures of the Foreign News Desk" focuses on the role of the foreign desk in TV news at TV4 (Sweden), ITN (England) and CBS (USA). Kristina is planning an anthology called: Politicotainment: Television's Take on the Real about politics in drama and reality TV (where she focuses on The West Wing). Finally, she has a long-abiding interest in the Middle East and is particularly interested in the media and civil wars and low-intensity conflicts.

research summary of Cultures of Foreign News Desks

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Representation of Air War in the War in Iraq

• How did the new military tactics for the war in Iraq make it possible to exclude the air war from the coverage?
• How did the exclusion relate to the dearth of representation of the non-combatant casualties?
• How do popular culture representations of air wars--especially film--serve the interest of state-sponsored propaganda and control of the news?
• What interventions are possible to make the public aware of the nature, purpose, and destructive results of modern air wars?

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Explaining Failure:   Superpowers, Lost Wars, and Television

Researcher: Laura Roselle
Institution: Elon University, USA

Research:
This work examines superpowers and failure by focusing on the United States in Vietnam and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and addresses the question: How do leaders of powerful states present a lost war?   The paper argues that how leaders frame the story of withdrawal must be understood by focusing on domestic political considerations, as well as concerns about international identity and the ability to project power. Because policy legitimacy and the maintenance of a great power identity are linked, they set constraints on how leaders strategically frame military failure.   As a result, Soviet and American leaders believed that they had particular responsibilities related to interests and power.   Their explanations of war were meant to protect superpower identity and what they described as their 'rightful' place in the international system.   This essay, then, is about the construction and maintenance of superpower identity in the face of military failure.

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The representation of 11/9 in the Greek Media

Organisation: IMM
Researchers: Athanassios Samaras
Funder: Independent Analyst
Status of Project: Ongoing

Research:
The terrorist attack on the Word Trade Center on the 9-11 led to the development of the War of Terrorism master frame in the USA.   This master frame derives from the combination of the   war frame with the terrorism frame while it incorporated   attributes of the previous terrorism-related frames. It serves several functions both cognitive by linking together disparate facts, events and leaders, and also evaluative by naming perpetrators, identifying victims and attributing blame. Its adoption by the White House, by the US politicians and journalists allowed them to communicate a coherent, simple message to the American public, to reshape perception of friends and enemies and to convey US foreign policy priorities to the international community (Norris, Kern and Just 2003).

The Greek media applied a process of oppositional decoding towards the War On Terrorism master frame by activating an interpretation framework formulated in respond to Kosovo bombing. Previous examination of the framing of 9-11 in the editorials of   Greek newspapers explored certain attributes of the oppositional framework. Contrary to the   War on Terrorism master frame which decontextualizes the terrorist activity from its conditions and focuses on the terrorists, the victims, the future dangers and the punitive actions; the oppositional framework contextualizes the terrorist attack; focuses on the wider conditions and by doing so it   rationalizes terrorism and attributes   part of the responsibility to the US policies for creating such conditions. Certain reactions of the USA to the 9-11 were framed in terms of geopolitical dominance rather than defense.

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Communicating War in History - provisional title

Researcher: Eugenia Siapera
Institution: Anglia Polytechnic University

Research:
Stemming from relevant teaching, this research is looking into the history of war communication and the changing role of communication in war. The goal is to contextualise current media research into war and to provide an historical understanding of the role of communication. This research will then hopefully contribute to discussion regarding the ethics of war communication, and its role in democratic politics. I am looking into four distinct periods: the Ancient World; Pre-modern Europe; Modernity; Late/post-modernity. Unfortunetaly, my focus is at the moment very Euro-centric, but at a later stage, it may develop to a more global-oriented perspective.

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Terrorism and the Media: Representations of Terrorism in the Media & Terrorists' Use of Media.                                                   

Researcher: Devyani Vyas
Institution: Kingston University

Research:
Researching the phenomenon of imprisoned terrorists resorting to hunger strike (particularly European "revolutionary" terrorists of the 1970's and 80's), and how this was and has been portrayed in the media.

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No title.

Researcher: Philip Seib
Institution: Marquette University
Funder:

Research: Examination of ways that communication/information technologies affect news media's coverage of conflict and international relations, and directly affect elements of democratization and globalization.    

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No Title

Researcher: Greg Simons
Institution: Crisis Management Research and Training and Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University

Research:
Looking at the use of mass media during warfare, the object of study being Iraq. Then will make a comparision between American war on terrorism with the Russian war on terrorism. A number of issues being looked at:
1) mechanisms used to try and   control the media.
2) use of rhetoric in the war on terror (American and Russian).
3) primary frames that are pushed by the authorities during the war against terrorism.

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