- Prof Piers Robinson: "War and Media" Archived Message
Posted by margo
on January 6, 2020, 10:11 am
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War and media since 9/11 Piers Robinson First Published September 17, 2019 Sage Journals https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0267323119875251#.XhLHfIp1m3c.twitter extract Overview: War and conflict post 9/11 THE occurrence of war and armed conflict in the international system has not abated. For a brief period following the collapse of the Soviet Union, many Western academics celebrated the emergence of a new world order and looked positively towards a more democratic, rule-governed and peaceful international system (e.g. Fukuyama, 1989). The use of force, rather than for territorial gain and self-interest, would instead be deployed in order to protect civilians and uphold human rights by way of a new norm ‘humanitarian intervention’ (e.g. Shaw, 1996). Since 9/11, however, we have witnessed a series of major conflicts in the international system many of which have occurred under the auspices of the so-called ‘war on terror’. Both Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003) were the target for US-led military action and resulted in violent conflict that continues to this day. Later, but not entirely disconnected from the early phase of the ‘war on terror’, came US-sponsored action in both Libya and Syria. Although at face value part of the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings, both of these countries had also been targeted by Western states (e.g. the United States, France and the United Kingdom) who have worked with regional allies (e.g. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Qatar) in order to fund and support proxy forces fighting to overthrow both governments. In both these countries, this has led to the US and some of its European and Middle Eastern allies to variously provide direct or indirect support for Al Qaeda and jihadist linked groups (see Anderson, 2019; Curtis, 2018; Ripley, 2018). For example, US involvement in Syria has involved the largest ever covert CIA operation (Timber Sycamore) in co-operation with Saudi Arabia (Mazzetti et al., 2017). In Syria, Russia and Iran have supported the Syrian government against these attacks. The death toll associated with all the post-9/11 wars has almost undoubtedly run into the millions. It is highly unlikely that this almost constant state of war has been coincidental: retired US general Wesley Clark and former chief of staff to Colin Powell Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson (2019) have both publicly stated the existence of plans to engage in multiple ‘regime-change wars’ following 9/11 while the UK Chilcot report published documents which provided corroboration of these claims (Robinson, 2017). ‘Regime change’ tactics continue today with drives to weaken, destabilize and topple governments in Iran and Venezuela, conflict between the West and Russia over the Ukraine, while substantial questions continue to emerge with respect to the actors involved in the 9/11 attacks (e.g. Griffin and Woodworth, 2018; Robinson, 2019a). The drum beat of war has yet to crystallize with respect to the Russian Federation or China, but there is clearly a concerted drive to attribute responsibility for international insecurity, violence and mischief at the feet of Russia (see Boyd-Barrett, 2019) even though its military engagements are minor relative to the Western propensity for ‘humanitarian intervention’ and ‘regime change’. We live in violent times. Against this backdrop of Western-fueled armed conflict and propaganda, Fröhlich’s Media in War and Armed Conflict and Palmer’s War Correspondents since 9/11 raise a familiar but important set of issues regarding the role of media during war. Media–political dynamics during war and conflict: Fröhlich’s INFOCORE project Fröhlich’s edited collection represents the primary output of a large-scale EU-funded research project, INFOCORE, which drew together a significant body of researchers in order to explore media dynamics across five different conflicts in Syria, Israel-Palestine, Burundi, Macedonia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and which included analysis of British, French and German news media coverage. The result is a rich and sophisticated range of analyses, drawing upon rigorous methodologies and portraying a complex and nuanced understanding of media–political dynamics during war. At times the analysis tends towards a suggestion that media–political dynamics are highly variable during conflict with governments and powerful actors never fully able to control the narrative and journalists retaining significant levels of autonomy (Baden and Meyer, p. 19). For example, in a chapter documenting INFOCORE’s impressive media analysis (based on a sophisticated content and framing analysis of a large corpus of media coverage), Baden and Tenenboim-Weinblatt (p. 53) note that their data show that ‘there are also many valuable transformations suitable to mitigate the distortions and incitements of other conflict actors, and improve the quality of information’ and that there is a ‘powerful undercurrent of professional news work that is relatively unaffected by conflict-related or political biases’ (p. 53). In the concluding chapter, Fröhlich at times appears to lean even harder towards a conclusion that is suggestive of media autonomy noting that common assumptions regarding government influence over media reporting have been ‘put into question by our results’ (p. 291). At the same time, the broad thrust of the various chapters points towards the long-standing and well-documented thesis that governments and powerful actors hold tremendous sway over journalists and the media during times of conflict and war and that journalistic conventions and news routines further inhibit the quality of war reporting. For example, Baden and Tenenboim-Weinblatt also find that news media coverage across all their cases showed ‘markedly ethnocentric presentation of the news’ (p. 59), the ‘incendiary nature of conflict news’ (p. 59) and that there is ‘plenty of evidence to corroborate common worries about the fallible, biased, violence-orientated and self-righteous coverage of conflict’ (p. 68). The subsequent and key chapter authored by Fröhlich and Jungblut makes a welcome contribution by placing the ‘strategic communication’ activities of state actors and NGOs under the spotlight. Activities today labelled with euphemisms such as ‘strategic communication’ or ‘public relations’ were historically referred to as ‘propaganda’ (Bakir et al., 2018). Much of the political communication literature tends to sidestep analysis of message production and promotion by political actors, preferring instead to focus on media production and content or audience reception/public opinion (Robinson, 2019b). INFOCOR’s focus on this frequently ignored but critical part of the media-political equation is therefore much to be applauded. Consistent with the preceding chapter’s media analysis, Fröhlich and Jungblot discover interesting variations in how political actors and NGOs variously promote conflict escalation and de-escalation. However, their overall conclusions are fairly clear and arguably damning with regard to the way states and even NGOs promote violent conflict. The fact that not only the strategic persuasive communication of NGOs but surprisingly also that of the particular political decision makers of this study generally places a higher focus on escalative narratives . . . puts the de-escalative attitude of European politics/political institutions – often postulated from a normative point of view – to the test. (Fröhlich and Jungblut, 2018: 103) They continue to posit, with great care, that their findings regarding both media and ‘strategic communication’ outputs indicate both that NGOs tend to promote a ‘humanitarian intervention’ agenda while ‘strategic narratives successfully make it into the media coverage and, once there, within particular professional journalistic routines probably contribute to the general “consonance of escalation” – as we put it – in media coverage on war and armed conflict’ (Fröhlich and Jungblut, 2018: 104). Other chapters, by and large, support these arguments. Berganza, Herrero-Jimnez and Carratala’s chapter looks closely at the case of parliamentary debates over whether to attack Syria following the alleged chemical weapon attack in Ghouta, Syria, in 2013. Their aim is to explore the influence of media (social and news media) upon parliamentary debates at the time and particular emphasis is placed on exploring the importance of social media/citizen journalism including from activists on the ground in Syria. Although they find important interactions between parliamentarians and social media, they also note the almost complete absence of genuine counter-narratives: One matter that proved especially interesting was the absence of Russian media from the European parliamentary debates . . . the Russian press offered a completely different perspective to the one adopted by the countries of Western Europe and the US, both with respect to the authorship and dimensions of the Ghouta massacre. (pp. 129–131) This issue is particularly pertinent because the issue of alleged chemical weapon attacks in Syria remains disputed at an international level and is now subject to emerging evidence that opposition groups have been staging attacks, so-called false flags, in order to implicate the Syrian government (Chen et al., in press; McKeigue et al., 2019). In effect, debate over the alleged chemical weapon attack at Ghouta remained firmly within the contours of what Hallin (1986) once described as ‘elite-legitimated controversy’ whereby Syrian government guilt was presumed and arguments then proceeded around how to respond. Usefully, and in a particularly interesting chapter, Hanitzsch and Hoxha explore the contextual factors, such as limited access to information, reliance upon financial support from Western governments and NGOs and physical threats to journalists, which cause journalists to struggle to retain their autonomy (p. 187). Further chapters by Sangar, Meyer, Wolfsfeld, Tsiforni, Micevski, Trpevska, Frere and Fiedler add further methodological and empirical depth variously discussing role of NGOs as supplier of information, interviews with political actors and audience trust in media..../ long paper continues |
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