MAC301

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• Framing Issues

• Mediatised conflict and strategies for information management

• Al-Jazeera as disruptive media

• Summary

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• Ray Heibert (1991) Pubic Relations Review

• Public relations and public communications would play an increasingly significant role in warfare

• The battle for public opinion would be as important as the engagement of soldiers on the front

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• Ray Heibert (2003) Public Relations Review

• We don’t think about facts but about the way those facts are framed

• Framing an issue becomes THE most powerful way to control our response to something.

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• See Lakoff (2003)

• Classic narratives:– Self-defense story– Rescue story

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Catch-phrases

• Global audience = occasional language slip-ups

• “Crusade”

• “Axis of Evil”

• “Operation Enduring Freedom”

• “Coalition of the Willing”

• “Saddam’s Fedayeen”8

Media (@) War

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Embedding journalists

• 600 based with troops

• Creates a sympathetic press

• Humanises the principal agents

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• “The essential strategy for becoming the standard of truth when no one believes you is to open your operations to the kind of risk that no one would take if he were planning to lie. Spin is out of the question. Good or bad, the story is there for the reporter to see. In a company criticized for, say, global labor practices, this would mean opening overseas factories to unscheduled media visits. In this war, it means embedded reporters” – Clark S Judge, 2003,

http://www.whwg.com/thefirm/sample.php/54/Clark_S._Judge

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• 'All the gadgets a reporter needs can be carried in a single suitcase that fits in the overhead compartment of most planes'. – (Peter Johnson, 'Media's war footing looks

solid', USA Today, 17 February 2003)

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• Launched in 1996 • Qatari capital of Doha• Estimated audience of 35

million regular viewers (Allan, 2004: 163)

• Biased?• Front for the CIA• ‘the mouthpiece for Osama bin

Laden’

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• ‘The only crime Al-jazeera had committed was bearing witness to events the US would rather the rest of the world did not see’

• (Nik Gowing, BBC, 2002)

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• Iraq War (2003) presence:– Central Command (Centcom)– 4 embedded reporters with US & UK troops– Large unilateral reporting teams

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• When Western journalists outside Basra were speculating about an uprising on the basis of coalition briefings, Al-Jazeera's correspondent inside the city was reporting first hand that “the streets are very calm and there are no indications of violence or riots”– Tarik Kafala, 2003,

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2893689.stm

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• ‘We and other broadcasters were not criticised for showing pictures of Iraqi dead and captured or those famous pictures from Guantanamo Bay’

– (Yosri Fouda cited in Kafala 2003)

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• “Al-Jazeera” became one of the most searched for terms on the web

• ‘people branching out beyond their normal sources of news’– (Karl Gregory, Director of Marketing at

AltaVista)

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• Journalists ignored at Centcom

• Financial reporters evicted from NYSE

• Website hacked by pro-war groups

• www.english.aljazeera.net DoS attack (March 2003)

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• The US military played a fundamental role in shaping the perception people had of the war. Does this give PR a bad name?

• What are the implications for the general public? Is globally produced news fit for purpose?

• Does the world need the likes of Al-Jazeera to counter the hegemonic versions of reality distributed by western backed media?

• Does new technology bring about a democratisation of the public?

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• To what extent is it possible to separate the fact from the propaganda?

• How complicit are journalists in this process?

• How might the demands for copy impact upon public knowledge?

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• S. Allan, 2004, News Culture – 2nd edition, Berkshire: Open University Press.• Clar Byrne, 2003, ‘Sun brands Chirac “Saddam’s Whore”’, March 21st available at

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2003/mar/21/Iraqandthemedia.pressandpublishing#history-byline • Ray Eldon Hiebert, 1991, ‘Public relations as a weapon of modern warfare’, Public Relations Review 17(2)

(Summer), pp. 107–116. See also, Bradley S. Greenberg, Walter Ganz (Eds.), 1993, Desert Storm and the Mass Media, Hampton Press, Cresskill, NJ, pp. 29–36, and 1991, Ecquid Novi: Journal for Journalism in Southern Africa 12(1), pp. 93–105.

• Ray Eldon Hiebert, 2003, ‘Public relations and propaganda in framing the Iraq war: a preliminary review’ Public Relations Review, 29 (3), doi:10.1016/S0363-8111(03)00047-X    

• Clark S Judge, 2003, ‘P.R. lessons from the Pentagon’, The Wall Street Journal, April 1, p. B2. Available at http://www.whwg.com/thefirm/sample.php/54/Clark_S._Judge

• Tarik Kafala, 2003, Al-Jazeera: News channel in the news, BBC, 29 March http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2893689.stm

• George Lakoff, 2002. Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think, 2nd ed., University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

• George Lakoff, 2003, ‘Metaphor and War Again’, http://www.alternet.org/story/15414/?page=3 • N.A. Ostrom, 2003, ‘Net plays big role in war news, commentary’, The Mercury news, 28 February – at

http://www.altmuslim.com/press_more.php?id=1268_0_27_0_C • Douglas Quenqua, March 24th 2003, ‘White House prepares to feed 24-hour news cycle’ PR Week

http://www.prweekus.com/White-House-prepares-to-feed-24-hour-news-cycle/article/46713/)• Ariel Sabar, Military crews capture images from front line, The Baltimore Sun, April 18, 2003, p. A1.

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Recommended reading• Howard Tumber & Jerry Palmer, 2004, Media at War: the Iraq Crisis, London: Sage• Nick Davies, 2008, Flat Earth News: An Award-Winning Report Exposes Falsehood, Distortion and Propaganda

in the Global Media, London: Chatto & Windus• Simon Cottle, 2006, Mediatized Conflict, Maidenhead: Open University Press• Justin Lewis, Andrew Williams and Bob Franklin, 2008, “Four Rumours and an Explanation: A political economic

account of journalists’ changing newsgathering and reporting practices” in Journalism Practice, Vol 2 No 1.•  Stuart Allan, 2006, Online News, Maidenhead: Open University Press.• Stephen Reese, 2004, ‘Militarized Journalism: Framing Dissent in the Gulf Wars’ in Stuart Allan and Barbara

Zelizer (eds), Reporting War, London: Routledge.• Mark Deuze, 2003, “The Web and its Journalisms: Considering the Consequences of Different Types of

Newsmedia Online” in New Media and Society Vol 5 Iss 2.

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