Pub Date : 2020-07-08DOI: 10.1177/1750635220939121
Mathew Charles
The study of trauma in journalism tends to assume that trauma exposure (whether it has been a single event or a series of cumulative episodes) is past and finite. However, this article argues that the notion of trauma exposure as temporally located in the past fails to adequately capture the experiences of local, indigenous journalists living and working in contexts of protracted conflict or violence. There is a growing, if contested, acknowledgement that existing conceptualizations of traumatic stress, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), have limited utility in conditions of ongoing violence and danger. In contrast, and based on a participant observation study conducted over three years, this article proposes a spectrum of continuous traumatic stressors and charts the continuous traumatic stress (CTS) of four local reporters in Colombia, living and working in a context of intractable conflict. In this setting, where local journalists have become agents for peace, CTS conjoins the mental wellbeing of individual reporters with their capacity for peace-building.
{"title":"Re-thinking trauma: Local journalism, peace-building and continuous traumatic stress (CTS) on the violent margins of Colombia","authors":"Mathew Charles","doi":"10.1177/1750635220939121","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1750635220939121","url":null,"abstract":"The study of trauma in journalism tends to assume that trauma exposure (whether it has been a single event or a series of cumulative episodes) is past and finite. However, this article argues that the notion of trauma exposure as temporally located in the past fails to adequately capture the experiences of local, indigenous journalists living and working in contexts of protracted conflict or violence. There is a growing, if contested, acknowledgement that existing conceptualizations of traumatic stress, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), have limited utility in conditions of ongoing violence and danger. In contrast, and based on a participant observation study conducted over three years, this article proposes a spectrum of continuous traumatic stressors and charts the continuous traumatic stress (CTS) of four local reporters in Colombia, living and working in a context of intractable conflict. In this setting, where local journalists have become agents for peace, CTS conjoins the mental wellbeing of individual reporters with their capacity for peace-building.","PeriodicalId":45719,"journal":{"name":"Media War and Conflict","volume":"15 1","pages":"202 - 220"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2020-07-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1750635220939121","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44648129","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-07-02DOI: 10.1177/1750635220938404
Khaled Al-Shehari, Abdul Gabbar Mohamed Al-Sharafi
In this article, the authors apply a narrative model to examine how narratives about the current crisis in Yemen are constructed on English Wikipedia. Using concepts from various narrative theories, as introduced to the field of translation studies by Baker’s Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account (2006), they analyse an article published on English Wikipedia. The analysis, based on a narrative model designed for this study, focuses on the alleged supporters of the Houthis in the current Yemeni crisis and is applied to the talk pages and history pages associated with the article. The article concludes that, although Wikipedia writers appear free to write and edit without restrictions, they are in fact subject to strict policies and regulations. The transparency of their discussions is a striking feature that controls the quality of the narratives they negotiate on Wikipedia.
{"title":"Negotiating Wikipedia narratives about the Yemeni crisis: Who are the alleged supporters of the Houthis?","authors":"Khaled Al-Shehari, Abdul Gabbar Mohamed Al-Sharafi","doi":"10.1177/1750635220938404","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1750635220938404","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, the authors apply a narrative model to examine how narratives about the current crisis in Yemen are constructed on English Wikipedia. Using concepts from various narrative theories, as introduced to the field of translation studies by Baker’s Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account (2006), they analyse an article published on English Wikipedia. The analysis, based on a narrative model designed for this study, focuses on the alleged supporters of the Houthis in the current Yemeni crisis and is applied to the talk pages and history pages associated with the article. The article concludes that, although Wikipedia writers appear free to write and edit without restrictions, they are in fact subject to strict policies and regulations. The transparency of their discussions is a striking feature that controls the quality of the narratives they negotiate on Wikipedia.","PeriodicalId":45719,"journal":{"name":"Media War and Conflict","volume":"15 1","pages":"183 - 201"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2020-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1750635220938404","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47942807","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-06-03DOI: 10.1177/1750635220929520
Juan S. Larrosa-Fuentes
Chapo Guzmán was the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel. Although he was a well-known criminal, there is a scarcity of first-hand information about his career. This situation raises a question: how did Guzmán become a public figure without having public exposure? This communicative phenomenon is possible because drug cartels have sophisticated propaganda techniques that allow them to challenge the state not only in the military realm but also in the cultural realm. Among other media, these criminal organizations use narcocorridos, a popular music genre, as a medium for propaganda. This article studies, through a narrative analysis of 66 lyrics, how music, as a form of political communication, is used as propaganda. This study found three main narratives in the narcocorridos dedicated to Guzmán: (i) the origins of this drug dealer; (ii) the masculine features that led him to be a global kingpin; and (iii) his genius for corrupting political systems. These lyrics are propaganda because: (a) they spread knowledge in the form of stories about Guzmán; (b) they create a mythology about the kingpin and the narco-world; and (c) they distort reality by picturing Guzmán as a great man and blur reality by suppressing any reference to the drug wars.
{"title":"The neoliberal Houdini who escaped from (poverty and) prison: Chapo’s narcocorridos, political communication and propaganda","authors":"Juan S. Larrosa-Fuentes","doi":"10.1177/1750635220929520","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1750635220929520","url":null,"abstract":"Chapo Guzmán was the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel. Although he was a well-known criminal, there is a scarcity of first-hand information about his career. This situation raises a question: how did Guzmán become a public figure without having public exposure? This communicative phenomenon is possible because drug cartels have sophisticated propaganda techniques that allow them to challenge the state not only in the military realm but also in the cultural realm. Among other media, these criminal organizations use narcocorridos, a popular music genre, as a medium for propaganda. This article studies, through a narrative analysis of 66 lyrics, how music, as a form of political communication, is used as propaganda. This study found three main narratives in the narcocorridos dedicated to Guzmán: (i) the origins of this drug dealer; (ii) the masculine features that led him to be a global kingpin; and (iii) his genius for corrupting political systems. These lyrics are propaganda because: (a) they spread knowledge in the form of stories about Guzmán; (b) they create a mythology about the kingpin and the narco-world; and (c) they distort reality by picturing Guzmán as a great man and blur reality by suppressing any reference to the drug wars.","PeriodicalId":45719,"journal":{"name":"Media War and Conflict","volume":"15 1","pages":"99 - 117"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2020-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1750635220929520","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41446730","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-06-03DOI: 10.1177/1750635220925844
Serhat Tutkal
This article examines the dissemination of images of mutilated and humiliated dead bodies of ‘others’ and reactions of Twitter users to these images as dehumanizing practices. When the peace negotiations between the Turkish state and Kurdish PKK failed, numerous images of mutilated and humiliated dead bodies of PKK militants were disseminated by Twitter accounts apparently used by members of the Turkish security forces. The author focuses on two controversial cases from 2015 and immediate social media reactions to those images in order to demonstrate how dehumanization of Kurdish militants played out in the case of Turkey.
{"title":"Dehumanization on Twitter in the Turkish–Kurdish conflict","authors":"Serhat Tutkal","doi":"10.1177/1750635220925844","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1750635220925844","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the dissemination of images of mutilated and humiliated dead bodies of ‘others’ and reactions of Twitter users to these images as dehumanizing practices. When the peace negotiations between the Turkish state and Kurdish PKK failed, numerous images of mutilated and humiliated dead bodies of PKK militants were disseminated by Twitter accounts apparently used by members of the Turkish security forces. The author focuses on two controversial cases from 2015 and immediate social media reactions to those images in order to demonstrate how dehumanization of Kurdish militants played out in the case of Turkey.","PeriodicalId":45719,"journal":{"name":"Media War and Conflict","volume":"15 1","pages":"165 - 182"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2020-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1750635220925844","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49570800","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-06-01DOI: 10.1177/1750635219828763
Meghan Sobel, Seoyeon Kim, D. Riffe
This quantitative content analysis uses 36 years of New York Times international news to understand how conflict coverage is presented to audiences in terms of quantity and geographic focus, whether conflict is covered because of its linkage to US interests, and whether the Times relies on its own personnel for first-hand coverage. Additionally, a contemporary history approach gauges how representative coverage is of conflicts in varying regions. Quantitative data reveal an imbalance in coverage; stories about low-income nations focused more on conflict and were more likely to link events to US interests. However, the volume of coverage of these countries was minimal and arguably failed to report some of the most severe internal crises in those nations. According to social construction of reality theorists, this imbalance and distortion can lead to audience perception that more conflict occurs in low-income nations than in other, more developed parts of the world.
{"title":"The World at War: Three and a Half Decades of New York Times Conflict Coverage","authors":"Meghan Sobel, Seoyeon Kim, D. Riffe","doi":"10.1177/1750635219828763","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1750635219828763","url":null,"abstract":"This quantitative content analysis uses 36 years of New York Times international news to understand how conflict coverage is presented to audiences in terms of quantity and geographic focus, whether conflict is covered because of its linkage to US interests, and whether the Times relies on its own personnel for first-hand coverage. Additionally, a contemporary history approach gauges how representative coverage is of conflicts in varying regions. Quantitative data reveal an imbalance in coverage; stories about low-income nations focused more on conflict and were more likely to link events to US interests. However, the volume of coverage of these countries was minimal and arguably failed to report some of the most severe internal crises in those nations. According to social construction of reality theorists, this imbalance and distortion can lead to audience perception that more conflict occurs in low-income nations than in other, more developed parts of the world.","PeriodicalId":45719,"journal":{"name":"Media War and Conflict","volume":"13 1","pages":"170 - 187"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2020-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1750635219828763","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48672658","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-06-01DOI: 10.1177/1750635219828772
Stephanie de Smale
This article examines how war memory circulates, connects and collides on digital media platforms driven by digital publics that form around popular culture. Through a case study of vernacular memory discourses emerging around a game inspired by the Yugoslav war, the article investigates how the commenting practices of YouTube users provide insights into the feelings of belonging of conflict-affected subjects that go beyond ethnicity and exceed geographical boundaries. The comments of 331 videos were analysed, using an open source tool and sequential mixed-method content analysis. Media-based collectivities emerging on YouTube are influenced by the reactive and asynchronous dynamics of comments that stimulate the emergence of micro-narratives. Within this plurality of voices, connective moments focus on shared memories of trauma and displacement beyond ethnicity. However, clashing collective memories cause disputes that reify identification along ethnic lines. The article concludes that memory discourses emerging in the margins of YouTube represent the affective reactions of serendipitous encounters between users of audio-visual content.
{"title":"Memory in the margins: The connecting and colliding of vernacular war memories","authors":"Stephanie de Smale","doi":"10.1177/1750635219828772","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1750635219828772","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines how war memory circulates, connects and collides on digital media platforms driven by digital publics that form around popular culture. Through a case study of vernacular memory discourses emerging around a game inspired by the Yugoslav war, the article investigates how the commenting practices of YouTube users provide insights into the feelings of belonging of conflict-affected subjects that go beyond ethnicity and exceed geographical boundaries. The comments of 331 videos were analysed, using an open source tool and sequential mixed-method content analysis. Media-based collectivities emerging on YouTube are influenced by the reactive and asynchronous dynamics of comments that stimulate the emergence of micro-narratives. Within this plurality of voices, connective moments focus on shared memories of trauma and displacement beyond ethnicity. However, clashing collective memories cause disputes that reify identification along ethnic lines. The article concludes that memory discourses emerging in the margins of YouTube represent the affective reactions of serendipitous encounters between users of audio-visual content.","PeriodicalId":45719,"journal":{"name":"Media War and Conflict","volume":"13 1","pages":"188 - 212"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2020-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1750635219828772","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46158573","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-06-01DOI: 10.1177/1750635218819416
Dr. Arif Hussain Nadaf
International conflict reporting and national media discourse of warring nations continue to dominate existing scholarship on media–conflict relationships. The literature on the subject lacks significant consideration towards understanding the relevance of local and sub-national media narratives in conflict situations. The existing literature on the media–conflict relationship in the conflict territory of Kashmir shows that the issue has been largely studied from the perspective of national news media in India and Pakistan. This study while engaging with the local news media in the Kashmir region, draws empirical evidence from the local newspapers in the context of the 2014 State Assembly election campaigns which took place amid unprecedented political polarization in the region. The findings from the content analysis revealed that the contested political issues between the political parties found higher resonance in the campaign news while the deliberation regarding the conflict in the region and its resolution had the least prevalence in the news discourse. This not only confirms the significant relevance of local news media and internal political dynamics in redefining the media–conflict relationship in the Kashmir conflict but also suggests the further need to engage with local and regional news narratives in conflict situations.
{"title":"Framing internal politics in a conflict situation: A study of the 2014 election campaign news in the local newspapers in the Indian-administered Kashmir region","authors":"Dr. Arif Hussain Nadaf","doi":"10.1177/1750635218819416","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1750635218819416","url":null,"abstract":"International conflict reporting and national media discourse of warring nations continue to dominate existing scholarship on media–conflict relationships. The literature on the subject lacks significant consideration towards understanding the relevance of local and sub-national media narratives in conflict situations. The existing literature on the media–conflict relationship in the conflict territory of Kashmir shows that the issue has been largely studied from the perspective of national news media in India and Pakistan. This study while engaging with the local news media in the Kashmir region, draws empirical evidence from the local newspapers in the context of the 2014 State Assembly election campaigns which took place amid unprecedented political polarization in the region. The findings from the content analysis revealed that the contested political issues between the political parties found higher resonance in the campaign news while the deliberation regarding the conflict in the region and its resolution had the least prevalence in the news discourse. This not only confirms the significant relevance of local news media and internal political dynamics in redefining the media–conflict relationship in the Kashmir conflict but also suggests the further need to engage with local and regional news narratives in conflict situations.","PeriodicalId":45719,"journal":{"name":"Media War and Conflict","volume":"13 1","pages":"111 - 132"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2020-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1750635218819416","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43327980","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-06-01DOI: 10.1177/1750635219828761
Matthew Spokes
This article explores how the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea is represented in video games developed and played during the height of the War on Terror. Drawing on Šisler’s article, ‘Digital Arabs: Representation in video games’ (2008) and Robinson’s articles ‘Videogames, persuasion and the War on Terror: Escaping or embedding the military-entertainment complex? (2012) and ‘Have you won the war on terror? Military videogames and the state of American exceptionalism’ (2015), this article explores two case studies Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (2005) and Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon 2 (2004) using Bogost’s (2008, 2010) concept of ‘procedural rhetoric’ to unpack and detail the visual signifiers and gameplay mechanics of these titles in comparison with other work on games set in ‘Axis of Evil’ countries. The article concludes by situating the games within the military-entertainment complex more broadly (here focusing on film), arguing that North Korea is ultimately framed paradoxically in video games, a country that is viewed on the one hand as a threat to world peace and on the other as an absurdist dictatorship.
{"title":"The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Procedural Rhetoric and the Military-Entertainment Complex: Two Case Studies from the War on Terror","authors":"Matthew Spokes","doi":"10.1177/1750635219828761","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1750635219828761","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores how the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea is represented in video games developed and played during the height of the War on Terror. Drawing on Šisler’s article, ‘Digital Arabs: Representation in video games’ (2008) and Robinson’s articles ‘Videogames, persuasion and the War on Terror: Escaping or embedding the military-entertainment complex? (2012) and ‘Have you won the war on terror? Military videogames and the state of American exceptionalism’ (2015), this article explores two case studies Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (2005) and Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon 2 (2004) using Bogost’s (2008, 2010) concept of ‘procedural rhetoric’ to unpack and detail the visual signifiers and gameplay mechanics of these titles in comparison with other work on games set in ‘Axis of Evil’ countries. The article concludes by situating the games within the military-entertainment complex more broadly (here focusing on film), arguing that North Korea is ultimately framed paradoxically in video games, a country that is viewed on the one hand as a threat to world peace and on the other as an absurdist dictatorship.","PeriodicalId":45719,"journal":{"name":"Media War and Conflict","volume":"13 1","pages":"153 - 169"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2020-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1750635219828761","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42487325","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-06-01DOI: 10.1177/1750635219828774
Brendan Maartens
Historians have long taken an interest in military recruitment advertising and public relations. Much of their attention, however, has been directed towards promotion in wartime, with a lot less known about how governments used media to attract civilians in peacetime or during the many so-called ‘limited wars’ of the post-war era. This article addresses this shortcoming by exploring three separate recruitment campaigns waged in Britain at different moments in the 20th century. Giving a sense of the scale of official recruiting work, it highlights the central role played by commercial advertising and public relations professionals in the planning and development of campaigns and investigates whether recruiters were actually successful in convincing civilians to join up. The evidence presented here suggests that they had a negligible effect on enrolment rates. Yet, it also indicates that different types of appeal were used to attract civilians in peacetime, with material rewards typically taking precedence over notions of patriotic duty. Suggesting that such appeals effectively commodified military service, this article concludes by reflecting on their broader legacy to studies of media, war and conflict.
{"title":"Your Country Needs You? Advertising, Public Relations and the Promotion of Military Service in Peacetime Britain","authors":"Brendan Maartens","doi":"10.1177/1750635219828774","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1750635219828774","url":null,"abstract":"Historians have long taken an interest in military recruitment advertising and public relations. Much of their attention, however, has been directed towards promotion in wartime, with a lot less known about how governments used media to attract civilians in peacetime or during the many so-called ‘limited wars’ of the post-war era. This article addresses this shortcoming by exploring three separate recruitment campaigns waged in Britain at different moments in the 20th century. Giving a sense of the scale of official recruiting work, it highlights the central role played by commercial advertising and public relations professionals in the planning and development of campaigns and investigates whether recruiters were actually successful in convincing civilians to join up. The evidence presented here suggests that they had a negligible effect on enrolment rates. Yet, it also indicates that different types of appeal were used to attract civilians in peacetime, with material rewards typically taking precedence over notions of patriotic duty. Suggesting that such appeals effectively commodified military service, this article concludes by reflecting on their broader legacy to studies of media, war and conflict.","PeriodicalId":45719,"journal":{"name":"Media War and Conflict","volume":"13 1","pages":"213 - 233"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2020-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1750635219828774","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44459536","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-05-26DOI: 10.1177/1750635220922278
A. Sparks
Since the attacks of September 11 2001, there has been a marked decline in the number of military comedy films in American cinema. Films like Buffalo Soldiers, a film made prior to September 11 but released in 2003, show how this change first started. Whereas, prior to 2001, military comedies were generally accepted and even profitable, after 2001 the genre effectively disappeared and still to this day has not re-emerged despite military non-comedy films making a clear resurgence after 2008. In this article, the author explores how and why military comedies have declined over time by making comparisons of how popular both military comedy and non-comedy films were in prior periods and today. The purpose of this is to show how the decline of military comedies since 2001 is a symptom of a greater political trend within American political development, specifically the civil–military divide. As this divide has grown in the post-military draft period in the United States, an event like September 11 seems to have ruptured the general acceptability of laughing at the military, which remains improper in cinema to this day. Finally, he examines some of the political consequences of this lack of laughter at the military within the greater political and film studies literature, which include growing tacit support for the military and how the narratives within some of these films leave little room for American civilians to comedically view the military that defends them.
{"title":"Poking fun at heroes: American war and the death of the military comedy","authors":"A. Sparks","doi":"10.1177/1750635220922278","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1750635220922278","url":null,"abstract":"Since the attacks of September 11 2001, there has been a marked decline in the number of military comedy films in American cinema. Films like Buffalo Soldiers, a film made prior to September 11 but released in 2003, show how this change first started. Whereas, prior to 2001, military comedies were generally accepted and even profitable, after 2001 the genre effectively disappeared and still to this day has not re-emerged despite military non-comedy films making a clear resurgence after 2008. In this article, the author explores how and why military comedies have declined over time by making comparisons of how popular both military comedy and non-comedy films were in prior periods and today. The purpose of this is to show how the decline of military comedies since 2001 is a symptom of a greater political trend within American political development, specifically the civil–military divide. As this divide has grown in the post-military draft period in the United States, an event like September 11 seems to have ruptured the general acceptability of laughing at the military, which remains improper in cinema to this day. Finally, he examines some of the political consequences of this lack of laughter at the military within the greater political and film studies literature, which include growing tacit support for the military and how the narratives within some of these films leave little room for American civilians to comedically view the military that defends them.","PeriodicalId":45719,"journal":{"name":"Media War and Conflict","volume":"15 1","pages":"82 - 98"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2020-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1750635220922278","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43660114","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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