War Making and Propaganda: Media Responsibility for Human Rights Communication

Pages59-76
Date14 October 2011
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/S0275-7982(2011)0000006006
Published date14 October 2011
AuthorDavid L. Altheide,Jennifer N. Grimes
WAR MAKING AND
PROPAGANDA: MEDIA
RESPONSIBILITY FOR HUMAN
RIGHTS COMMUNICATION
David L. Altheide and Jennifer N. Grimes
ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the selective news coverage and propaganda that
preceded and followed the 9/11/01 event, using a model of news coverage
or War Programming developed by the first author in earlier work. The
ordered sequence of activities in War Programming begins from
reportage and visual reports on the most recent war to the reports on
the next war. The model is applied to the Iraq war to enhance our
theoretical capacity to explain modern propaganda and the resultant lack
of focus on human rights. By analyzing the news media context and
organizational reasons for propaganda, the authors find a predictable war
story was told by mainstream media, which omitted from the story a focus
upon human rights violations. The authors develop the contention that a
new approach is needed to offer critique before the event of war. Media
framing and formats must change if future wars, aided by propaganda,
are to be avoided.
Human Rights and Media
Studies in Communications, Volume 6, 59–76
Copyright r2011 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
ISSN: 0275-7982/doi:10.1108/S0275-7982(2011)0000006006
59
Mass media messages about human rights concerns in general, and
particularly areas of conflict and war in which human rights violations
(e.g., killing, unlawful detention, torture) occur are very important.
Messages delivered by the mass media help audiences and other decisions
makers understand key issues over which wars and conflict may occur and
they justify such actions, particularly the treatment and proclivity
toward the ‘‘other,’’ the enemy. This enemy inevitably includes women and
children, who often become the first victims associated with human rights
violations.
The relationship between human rights violations and the media is
particularly important in a global communications era, especially when
state propaganda is used routinely to set agendas and justify state action,
including boycotts, other sanctions, and even war. Ironically, human rights
language (e.g., protecting the innocent, bringing freedom, respecting indi-
viduals) is often used to justify strong action against an enemy (Dodds,
1998). Declarers of war often proclaim that they are invading a country
as ‘‘liberators’’ rather than ‘‘occupiers,’’ with a conflicted and volatile
occupation inevitably resulting. The use of propaganda and rhetoric to
demonize leaders and certain policies forwarded by other nations usually
precedes military action. This pattern has been well documented in
research about propaganda regarding Panama, Grenada, Somalia, and
the first Gulf War. In each case war was justified to protect ‘‘innocent
victims’’ who were being killed and tortured by arbitrary dictators and
war-lords.
As of October 2004, the war with Iraq has resulted in more than 8,000
dead or wounded American soldiers, the death of numerous contract
workers (excluding mercenaries), in addition to an estimated 22,000 dead or
wounded Iraqis (Cooney & Sinan, 2004;Yousef, 2004). As the conflict and
casualties mount, the issue of human rights violations in Iraq as a result of
the United States’ invasion has received very little news coverage. This essay
focuses on the selective news coverage and propaganda that preceded and
followed the aftermath of the infamous 9/11/01 attacks on the United States
by hijackers who transformed airliners into missiles of death. Our attention
focuses upon key themes that predefined the enemy in broad terms and
linked the hijackers to Iraq and Saddam Hussein, whose avowed arsenal of
‘‘weapons of mass destruction’’ was cast as a threat to human rights as well
as a source for future terrorist attacks; this is largely where media coverage
of human rights issues in Iraq tends to stop. We attend to the claims makers
who were involved in the construction of messages about Hussein and Iraq
to illustrate how these messages were carried uncritically by the major
DAVID L. ALTHEIDE AND JENNIFER N. GRIMES60

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