Pub Date : 2021-02-05DOI: 10.1177/1750635221991598
Nicholas Avedisian-Cohen
At the conclusion of each chapter, original artwork by Tristan Fuller illustrates and emphasizes Edwards’ points in a visual format. The author also refers to external research in order to debunk assumptions about the effects of graphic media on the viewer or to give empirical weight to her points. Weaving these theoretical accounts with empirical evidence is a major strength of the book. Edwards’ writing is strong and clear, and the additional research legitimizes her claims. The book is valuable as an introductory guide to theories on violence and visual media. However, without a stated hypothesis or question in mind, chapters at times feel disjointed and lack a cohesive link from one to the next. When presented with such a wealth of information, it would have been helpful if Edwards’ narrative voice was present to weave a link between chapters and to make sense of the vast theoretical landscape that she has introduced to the reader. Furthermore, Edwards’ investigation of violent imagery lacks sufficient content analysis to ground the theory and to exemplify how it is relevant in daily life. The text would benefit from a greater interrogation of the popular tropes and narratives that dominate violent media today. What makes violent media so insidious is its intersections with systems of oppression and domination. Only in Chapter 8 does Edwards touch upon the role of violent media in perpetuating gender stereotyping, hyper-masculinity, and white supremacy. I would have liked to have seen these topics interwoven throughout the entire book. Understanding the effects of violent imagery is more productive when combined with an in-depth understanding of the content being displayed. Finally, Edwards’ approach considers a wide variety of media and, consequently, readers are left with a basic understanding of media violence in a variety of forms. However, the book fails to develop in-depth analyses for any specific media type, such as violence as seen in film or on television. It would have profited from a clearer focus and a more elaborate discussion of fewer issues and examples. These caveats notwithstanding, Emily Edwards’ Graphic Violence: Illustrated Theories about Violence, Popular Media, and Our Social Lives provides the reader with a general overview on predominant theories related to media violence. The book addresses issues about the insidious culture of violence that remains entrenched in popular media today. When considered in its entirety, Graphic Violence serves best as an introductory blueprint for the reader, helping to build the theoretical foundations for further inquiry in the field.
{"title":"Book review: Kris Fallon, Where Truth Lies: Digital Culture and Documentary Media after 9/11","authors":"Nicholas Avedisian-Cohen","doi":"10.1177/1750635221991598","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1750635221991598","url":null,"abstract":"At the conclusion of each chapter, original artwork by Tristan Fuller illustrates and emphasizes Edwards’ points in a visual format. The author also refers to external research in order to debunk assumptions about the effects of graphic media on the viewer or to give empirical weight to her points. Weaving these theoretical accounts with empirical evidence is a major strength of the book. Edwards’ writing is strong and clear, and the additional research legitimizes her claims. The book is valuable as an introductory guide to theories on violence and visual media. However, without a stated hypothesis or question in mind, chapters at times feel disjointed and lack a cohesive link from one to the next. When presented with such a wealth of information, it would have been helpful if Edwards’ narrative voice was present to weave a link between chapters and to make sense of the vast theoretical landscape that she has introduced to the reader. Furthermore, Edwards’ investigation of violent imagery lacks sufficient content analysis to ground the theory and to exemplify how it is relevant in daily life. The text would benefit from a greater interrogation of the popular tropes and narratives that dominate violent media today. What makes violent media so insidious is its intersections with systems of oppression and domination. Only in Chapter 8 does Edwards touch upon the role of violent media in perpetuating gender stereotyping, hyper-masculinity, and white supremacy. I would have liked to have seen these topics interwoven throughout the entire book. Understanding the effects of violent imagery is more productive when combined with an in-depth understanding of the content being displayed. Finally, Edwards’ approach considers a wide variety of media and, consequently, readers are left with a basic understanding of media violence in a variety of forms. However, the book fails to develop in-depth analyses for any specific media type, such as violence as seen in film or on television. It would have profited from a clearer focus and a more elaborate discussion of fewer issues and examples. These caveats notwithstanding, Emily Edwards’ Graphic Violence: Illustrated Theories about Violence, Popular Media, and Our Social Lives provides the reader with a general overview on predominant theories related to media violence. The book addresses issues about the insidious culture of violence that remains entrenched in popular media today. When considered in its entirety, Graphic Violence serves best as an introductory blueprint for the reader, helping to build the theoretical foundations for further inquiry in the field.","PeriodicalId":45719,"journal":{"name":"Media War and Conflict","volume":"15 1","pages":"119 - 122"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-02-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1750635221991598","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44651221","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 : 2021-02-02DOI: 10.1177/1750635221989568
Gregory Asmolov
Much attention has been dedicated to how digital platforms change the nature of modern conflict. However, less has been paid to how the changes in the nature of warfare affect everyday lives. This article examines how digital mediation allows a convergence of the domestic environment and the battlefield by offering new ways for participation in warfare. It contributes to the discussion of how new participatory affordances change the nature of conflicts and whether they empower users or offer institutional actors more control over users. To this end, this research explores the transformation of domestic spaces, mediated via memes, as digital artefacts of participatory culture (see Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century, 2009, by Henry Jenkins). Building on the notion of domestication (see Domesticating the Revolution: Information and Communication Technologies and Everyday Life, 1993, by Roger Silverstone), the article conducts a discursive analysis of memes referring to the notion of ‘sofa warfare’ – an ironic description of internet users taking part in conflict without leaving their own sofas – in the context of the Russia–Ukraine conflict.
{"title":"From sofa to frontline: The digital mediation and domestication of warfare","authors":"Gregory Asmolov","doi":"10.1177/1750635221989568","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1750635221989568","url":null,"abstract":"Much attention has been dedicated to how digital platforms change the nature of modern conflict. However, less has been paid to how the changes in the nature of warfare affect everyday lives. This article examines how digital mediation allows a convergence of the domestic environment and the battlefield by offering new ways for participation in warfare. It contributes to the discussion of how new participatory affordances change the nature of conflicts and whether they empower users or offer institutional actors more control over users. To this end, this research explores the transformation of domestic spaces, mediated via memes, as digital artefacts of participatory culture (see Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century, 2009, by Henry Jenkins). Building on the notion of domestication (see Domesticating the Revolution: Information and Communication Technologies and Everyday Life, 1993, by Roger Silverstone), the article conducts a discursive analysis of memes referring to the notion of ‘sofa warfare’ – an ironic description of internet users taking part in conflict without leaving their own sofas – in the context of the Russia–Ukraine conflict.","PeriodicalId":45719,"journal":{"name":"Media War and Conflict","volume":"14 1","pages":"342 - 365"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-02-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1750635221989568","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46548501","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 : 2021-01-27DOI: 10.1177/1750635221989566
S. Creta
Situated at the intersection of digital migration studies, social movement studies and critical citizenship studies, this article explores how people on the move (migrants, refugees) in Libya use digital media to raise rights violations and to challenge European Union (EU) policies and UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) practices. To examine how digital media provide a ‘space of appearance’ for people on the move in Libya, the study presents a qualitative thematic analysis of 49 posts and 986 comments published on the official Facebook page of UNHCR Libya between January 2018 and January 2019. Major themes include criticisms of UNHCR services and EU policies as well as the raising of human rights issues surrounding detention and evacuation. The findings contribute to a deeper understanding of how digital media enable people on the move to raise rights claims, contest official narratives and become active narrators of their individual struggles with the system of control and exclusion that is so deeply embedded in the discourse of securitized humanitarian care at Europe’s border. At the same time, it highlights how issues of digital access and communicative capacity influence visibility and self-expression in the digital space of appearances.
{"title":"I hope, one day, I will have the right to speak","authors":"S. Creta","doi":"10.1177/1750635221989566","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1750635221989566","url":null,"abstract":"Situated at the intersection of digital migration studies, social movement studies and critical citizenship studies, this article explores how people on the move (migrants, refugees) in Libya use digital media to raise rights violations and to challenge European Union (EU) policies and UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) practices. To examine how digital media provide a ‘space of appearance’ for people on the move in Libya, the study presents a qualitative thematic analysis of 49 posts and 986 comments published on the official Facebook page of UNHCR Libya between January 2018 and January 2019. Major themes include criticisms of UNHCR services and EU policies as well as the raising of human rights issues surrounding detention and evacuation. The findings contribute to a deeper understanding of how digital media enable people on the move to raise rights claims, contest official narratives and become active narrators of their individual struggles with the system of control and exclusion that is so deeply embedded in the discourse of securitized humanitarian care at Europe’s border. At the same time, it highlights how issues of digital access and communicative capacity influence visibility and self-expression in the digital space of appearances.","PeriodicalId":45719,"journal":{"name":"Media War and Conflict","volume":"14 1","pages":"366 - 382"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-01-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1750635221989566","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47916096","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 : 2021-01-09DOI: 10.1177/1750635220987746
Sanem Şahin
Covering a conflict for journalists when they are members of one of the conflicting parties has some professional and moral dilemmas. It creates tensions between their professionalism and sense of belonging to their community. This article, focusing on journalism on both sides of Cyprus, explores how journalists think of their role in conflict-affected societies. Based on semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with journalists from the Turkish Cypriot media and Greek Cypriot media, it explores journalists’ self-reflection of their roles and the forces they believe that affect their work when reporting on the Cyprus conflict. The findings show journalists do not have a fixed identity but a changeable one. They renegotiate and reproduce the meaning and role of journalism in society, and move between professional and ethnic identities depending on the state of the conflict.
{"title":"Journalism in conflict-affected societies: Professional roles and influences in Cyprus","authors":"Sanem Şahin","doi":"10.1177/1750635220987746","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1750635220987746","url":null,"abstract":"Covering a conflict for journalists when they are members of one of the conflicting parties has some professional and moral dilemmas. It creates tensions between their professionalism and sense of belonging to their community. This article, focusing on journalism on both sides of Cyprus, explores how journalists think of their role in conflict-affected societies. Based on semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with journalists from the Turkish Cypriot media and Greek Cypriot media, it explores journalists’ self-reflection of their roles and the forces they believe that affect their work when reporting on the Cyprus conflict. The findings show journalists do not have a fixed identity but a changeable one. They renegotiate and reproduce the meaning and role of journalism in society, and move between professional and ethnic identities depending on the state of the conflict.","PeriodicalId":45719,"journal":{"name":"Media War and Conflict","volume":"15 1","pages":"553 - 569"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-01-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1750635220987746","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47986754","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 : 2020-12-10DOI: 10.1177/1750635220971004
S. Tejedor, L. Cervi, Fernanda Tusa
A total of 324 journalists have been killed in the world in the last decade. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the situation is alarming. Based on these statistics, this work presents an investigation with journalists from 10 countries. Based on in-depth interviews and the Delphi method, the study explores professionals’ perspectives about violence against journalists, pointing out the challenges for women, the role of independent media together with journalists’ networks and an increasing concern about governmental control over information.
{"title":"Perception of journalists reporting in conflict zones: Labour situation, working conditions and main challenges in information coverage in contexts of violence","authors":"S. Tejedor, L. Cervi, Fernanda Tusa","doi":"10.1177/1750635220971004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1750635220971004","url":null,"abstract":"A total of 324 journalists have been killed in the world in the last decade. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the situation is alarming. Based on these statistics, this work presents an investigation with journalists from 10 countries. Based on in-depth interviews and the Delphi method, the study explores professionals’ perspectives about violence against journalists, pointing out the challenges for women, the role of independent media together with journalists’ networks and an increasing concern about governmental control over information.","PeriodicalId":45719,"journal":{"name":"Media War and Conflict","volume":"15 1","pages":"530 - 552"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2020-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1750635220971004","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45524225","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 : 2020-12-10DOI: 10.1177/1750635220970997
Sabrina Gabel, Lilian Reichert, Christian Reuter
Social media have come to play a vital role not only in our everyday lives, but also in times of conflict and crisis such as natural disasters or civil wars. Recent research has highlighted, on the one hand, the use of social media as a means of recruitment by terrorists and, on the other hand, the use of Facebook, Twitter, etc. to gain the support of the population during insurgencies. This article conducts a qualitative content analysis of content on Twitter concerning the conflict in the Jammu and Kashmir region. The tweets following the death of a popular militant, Burhan Wani, cover three different themes: (1) criticism of intellectuals; (2) Burhan Wani’s impact on the conflict; and (3) tweets referring to the conflict itself. Generally, people use Twitter to make their own point of view clear to others and discredit the opposing party; at the same time, tweets reflect the antagonism between the two parties to the conflict, India and Pakistan. The sample of tweets reflects the lack of awareness among people in the region regarding the motivations of the new generation of militancy emerging in Kashmir after 1990.
{"title":"Discussing conflict in social media: The use of Twitter in the Jammu and Kashmir conflict","authors":"Sabrina Gabel, Lilian Reichert, Christian Reuter","doi":"10.1177/1750635220970997","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1750635220970997","url":null,"abstract":"Social media have come to play a vital role not only in our everyday lives, but also in times of conflict and crisis such as natural disasters or civil wars. Recent research has highlighted, on the one hand, the use of social media as a means of recruitment by terrorists and, on the other hand, the use of Facebook, Twitter, etc. to gain the support of the population during insurgencies. This article conducts a qualitative content analysis of content on Twitter concerning the conflict in the Jammu and Kashmir region. The tweets following the death of a popular militant, Burhan Wani, cover three different themes: (1) criticism of intellectuals; (2) Burhan Wani’s impact on the conflict; and (3) tweets referring to the conflict itself. Generally, people use Twitter to make their own point of view clear to others and discredit the opposing party; at the same time, tweets reflect the antagonism between the two parties to the conflict, India and Pakistan. The sample of tweets reflects the lack of awareness among people in the region regarding the motivations of the new generation of militancy emerging in Kashmir after 1990.","PeriodicalId":45719,"journal":{"name":"Media War and Conflict","volume":"15 1","pages":"504 - 529"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2020-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1750635220970997","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42901456","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 : 2020-12-04DOI: 10.1177/1750635220974980
M. D. Kim
This study explores the photographic representations of two terrorist incidents, the 2015 Paris attacks and the Beirut bombings, produced by the leading global news agencies. The study conducts a content analysis of the photographs produced by AP, Reuters and AFP to identify the recurring patterns of the images under the discourse of ‘othering’ and ‘grievability’. It is observed that the agencies represented the two incidents differently as they show distinctive patterns in their manners of portrayal. It is argued that the apparent ‘hierarchy of news values’ is accompanied by the ‘hierarchy of human lives’ within the photographic representations, whereby the photographs of the Paris attacks, recognized as an extraordinary event, speak of humanization in which lives of the sufferers are valued while the photographs of the Beirut bombings, seen as an ordinary event, speak of dehumanization, where lives are devalued. Implications for global journalism and news value are discussed.
{"title":"News values and human values in mediated terrorism: Photographic representations of the 2015 Beirut and Paris attacks by global news agencies","authors":"M. D. Kim","doi":"10.1177/1750635220974980","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1750635220974980","url":null,"abstract":"This study explores the photographic representations of two terrorist incidents, the 2015 Paris attacks and the Beirut bombings, produced by the leading global news agencies. The study conducts a content analysis of the photographs produced by AP, Reuters and AFP to identify the recurring patterns of the images under the discourse of ‘othering’ and ‘grievability’. It is observed that the agencies represented the two incidents differently as they show distinctive patterns in their manners of portrayal. It is argued that the apparent ‘hierarchy of news values’ is accompanied by the ‘hierarchy of human lives’ within the photographic representations, whereby the photographs of the Paris attacks, recognized as an extraordinary event, speak of humanization in which lives of the sufferers are valued while the photographs of the Beirut bombings, seen as an ordinary event, speak of dehumanization, where lives are devalued. Implications for global journalism and news value are discussed.","PeriodicalId":45719,"journal":{"name":"Media War and Conflict","volume":"15 1","pages":"486 - 503"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2020-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1750635220974980","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46731511","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 : 2020-12-01DOI: 10.1177/1750635219846029
Xu Zhang, Catherine A. Luther
This study analyzed news stories published on the online sites of CNN, Al-Jazeera English, and Sputnik to investigate how the transnational news outlets framed the human suffering associated with the Syrian war. Unlike prior studies that have tended to be based on traditional nation-state paradigms, this research approached the analysis from a cosmopolitan perspective. The findings revealed that in concert with standard journalistic routines and news values, all three news outlets commonly employed a mass death and displacement frame to depict human suffering inside Syria. The adoption of this frame suggests that in telling the story of human suffering, the three media outlets focused on brief facts and shocking statistics without detailed depictions of the human suffering. The meager presence of a cosmopolitan outlook in the news coverage indicates that although transnational media target a global audience with English as Lingua Franca, they cannot be completely independent of geopolitics.
{"title":"Transnational news media coverage of distant suffering in the Syrian civil war: An analysis of CNN, Al-Jazeera English and Sputnik online news","authors":"Xu Zhang, Catherine A. Luther","doi":"10.1177/1750635219846029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1750635219846029","url":null,"abstract":"This study analyzed news stories published on the online sites of CNN, Al-Jazeera English, and Sputnik to investigate how the transnational news outlets framed the human suffering associated with the Syrian war. Unlike prior studies that have tended to be based on traditional nation-state paradigms, this research approached the analysis from a cosmopolitan perspective. The findings revealed that in concert with standard journalistic routines and news values, all three news outlets commonly employed a mass death and displacement frame to depict human suffering inside Syria. The adoption of this frame suggests that in telling the story of human suffering, the three media outlets focused on brief facts and shocking statistics without detailed depictions of the human suffering. The meager presence of a cosmopolitan outlook in the news coverage indicates that although transnational media target a global audience with English as Lingua Franca, they cannot be completely independent of geopolitics.","PeriodicalId":45719,"journal":{"name":"Media War and Conflict","volume":"13 1","pages":"399 - 424"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1750635219846029","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44432655","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 : 2020-12-01DOI: 10.1177/1750635219846021
N. Baker, Nathan P. Jones
The Islamic State and Mexican drug ‘cartels’ have been positioned as extreme menaces to the Western world by media and state actors despite their inability to pose existential threats to the US. These groups deftly facilitate such representations through barbaric violence which security and information sharing apparatuses uptake and amplify. The ‘good’ neoliberal security state combats and inflates these ‘evil’ threats which, in turn, empowers purveyors of security in a deregulated environment. The authors interrogate this problem through the lens of negative utopias presented in speculative fiction to understand the implications for state and society. Projected representations of evil as an existential threat present a conflicted vision of the future manipulated by political and media actors with dire consequences for democratic ideals. National security relies on a never-ending cast of foreign threats that legitimize counter-terror actions in the name of moral good. Security institutions persist primarily through the simultaneous representation of a never-ending battle of good and evil. They stand to gain from the existence of extremely violent groups, without legitimate progress towards their eradication. They also bring fantasy into reality through the recursive enactment of good versus evil.
{"title":"A snake who eats the devil’s tail: The recursivity of good and evil in the security state","authors":"N. Baker, Nathan P. Jones","doi":"10.1177/1750635219846021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1750635219846021","url":null,"abstract":"The Islamic State and Mexican drug ‘cartels’ have been positioned as extreme menaces to the Western world by media and state actors despite their inability to pose existential threats to the US. These groups deftly facilitate such representations through barbaric violence which security and information sharing apparatuses uptake and amplify. The ‘good’ neoliberal security state combats and inflates these ‘evil’ threats which, in turn, empowers purveyors of security in a deregulated environment. The authors interrogate this problem through the lens of negative utopias presented in speculative fiction to understand the implications for state and society. Projected representations of evil as an existential threat present a conflicted vision of the future manipulated by political and media actors with dire consequences for democratic ideals. National security relies on a never-ending cast of foreign threats that legitimize counter-terror actions in the name of moral good. Security institutions persist primarily through the simultaneous representation of a never-ending battle of good and evil. They stand to gain from the existence of extremely violent groups, without legitimate progress towards their eradication. They also bring fantasy into reality through the recursive enactment of good versus evil.","PeriodicalId":45719,"journal":{"name":"Media War and Conflict","volume":"13 1","pages":"468 - 486"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1750635219846021","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44478524","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 : 2020-12-01DOI: 10.1177/1750635219850326
Rayeheh Alitavoli
This study identifies the dominant frames presented in opinion articles published from 20 August to 17 September 2013 on the alternative website – antiwar.com – and the mainstream website – cnn.com; this timeframe includes articles published a week before and a week after the US administration’s decision to attack and withdraw from Syria. The article employs qualitative content analysis and Entman’s framing theory to code the data and extract the themes and dominant frames present in a total of 87 opinion articles. The study concludes that cnn.com provided frames that presented Bashar al-Assad as a ‘brutal villain’ who uses chemical weapons on his own people, while providing frames that stress Barack Obama’s incompetency in carrying out a strategic plan and highlight the negative consequences of a strike. However, antiwar.com articles are more resonant and consistent than cnn.com articles, and provide frames that encourage readers to protest against engaging in another war, reminding them of the failures of similar past wars such as the Iraq War and its negative consequences, as well as stressing the major players that benefited from a military intervention.
{"title":"Framing the news on the Syrian War: A comparative study of antiwar.com and cnn.com editorials","authors":"Rayeheh Alitavoli","doi":"10.1177/1750635219850326","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1750635219850326","url":null,"abstract":"This study identifies the dominant frames presented in opinion articles published from 20 August to 17 September 2013 on the alternative website – antiwar.com – and the mainstream website – cnn.com; this timeframe includes articles published a week before and a week after the US administration’s decision to attack and withdraw from Syria. The article employs qualitative content analysis and Entman’s framing theory to code the data and extract the themes and dominant frames present in a total of 87 opinion articles. The study concludes that cnn.com provided frames that presented Bashar al-Assad as a ‘brutal villain’ who uses chemical weapons on his own people, while providing frames that stress Barack Obama’s incompetency in carrying out a strategic plan and highlight the negative consequences of a strike. However, antiwar.com articles are more resonant and consistent than cnn.com articles, and provide frames that encourage readers to protest against engaging in another war, reminding them of the failures of similar past wars such as the Iraq War and its negative consequences, as well as stressing the major players that benefited from a military intervention.","PeriodicalId":45719,"journal":{"name":"Media War and Conflict","volume":"13 1","pages":"487 - 505"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1750635219850326","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44607041","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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