Winning the Media Wars - Essay Example

Winning the Media Wars Introduction It is beyond doubt that the media nowadays are a strategic apparatus of war. This is due to the fact that emerging victorious in contemporary wars is equally at the mercy of mobilizing national and global public support as it is on overpowering the foe on the combat zone. This is and will remain a reality irrespective of the goals of numerous press people to present a balanced, objective, and unbiased judgment of conflict (Payne 2005). Perhaps no component of the recent hostilities in Iraq produces more sentiment and animosity within the armed forces than debate regarding the influence and function of the media on national policy and public support (Darley 2005). This phenomenon is obviously not new. The experience of the armed forces of the United States in the post-Cold War illustrates that triumph on the combat zone is rarely as effortless as overpowering the opponent by military might. From the time of the Civil War at least, subjective arguments related to the influence of the media on American wars have generated debate among journalists, scholars, the military, and government authorities as they carry on arguing the role and effects of the media (Katovsky & Carlson 2004). Traditionally, debate over the issue of the role and influence of the media has become especially serious when national policies carrying out the conflict are seen as being either weakening, or very slow to realize their political goals (Lewis & Rose 2002) to the detriment of increasing fatalities. Under such conditions, opponents of the media have been traditional in charging the press of editorial prejudice that weakens public support for war efforts, whereas most journalists have been similarly traditional in justifying that they are only realistically presenting what they witness and observe (Smith 1992). This issue perhaps acquired its most rigorous critique and evaluation after the Vietnam War, when the influence of the media over national policy and public support became the topic of several concerned groups, conferences, academic conventions, and innumerable publications (Murphy & White 2007). Quite distressing was this series of stern examinations that the issue of media prejudices and its effect on public support and national policy throughout the Vietnam War persists to emerge as a permanent point of comparison (Murphy & White 2007) at once every time the United States has engaged in later conflicts. This controversial debate is again apparent in present-day comparisons of the news reporting of the Vietnam War with that of the second Persian Gulf War, awakening new discussions concerning media influence over national policy and public support (Katovsky & Carlson 2004). Due to this resurfacing debate, it is suitable and important to reevaluate the influence and role of the media in contemporary conflicts. This paper focuses on the function of the media as an instrument to mobilize public support for war efforts, specifically focusing on the second Persian Gulf War. The Process of Political Persuasion or Public Support Mobilization Persuasion is essential to the discipline of Media and International Relations because a great deal of it concerns persuasion. Scholars investigate persuasion by examining attitudinal mechanisms after disclosure of certain information (Johansen & Joslyn 2008). A major sign of persuasion takes place when transformations in the information setting are followed by attitudinal changes. Opinions about President Bush and his campaign against Iraq altered significantly prior and during the preliminary stages of the war as the government justified its objective (Johansen & Joslyn 2008). What spurred these attitudinal changes was public recognition of particular information circulated by the administration of Bush and extensively covered by the news media. Apparently, the source of information is vital in persuasion. Information sources deemed as truthful, sincere, or credible are more influential than doubtful sources (Murphy & White 2007). Miller and Krosnick revealed that believed reliability of a source of information affected priming (Johansen & Joslyn 2008). Likewise, Druckman reported that the trustworthiness of the source was crucial for identifying the impacts of framing on political opinions (ibid, p. 591). To boost the reliability of the source, press officers usually mention political personalities who benefit from institutionalized status on particular issues (Smith 1999). According to Payne (2005), information sources who have acquired the status of ‘experts’ through coverage of the media have a tendency to be used recurrently whereas journalists frequently take for granted other capable but less popular sources. Well-known political personalities such as senators and the President offer particularly valuable information prompts for an ever more unmindful public. These personalities bear political reputation that provides the public with useful background information for assessments (Lewis & Rose 2002). For the second Gulf War and the prelude to it, the armed forces had great reliability of information source and were taken advantage of the media (Darley 2005). Studies also indicate that the source may weaken the planned impact of the message. An information source identified as compatible with the judgment of the perceiver is more credible (Darley 2005). If the information source is recognized as inconsistent, the message may be disregarded. When President Bush, for instance, makes a connection between terrorism and Iraq, Republicans would be predisposed to accept this association as true (Rather 2001). Democrats are more susceptible to challenge the connection specifically due to its adherent source. Ultimately, the relative objectivity located in the information setting is fundamental for establishing the enormity of persuasion (Payne 2005). In general, the media convey conflicting political judgments on a particular issue (Darley 2005). Public disclosure of specific information then generates no evident effect. Nevertheless, given a consistent and mainly biased disclosure of information, considerable persuasive impacts would be likely. In such instances incongruous messages are insignificant, and the people most in contact with the media setting are vulnerable (Darley 2005) to the dominant perception. The information setting prior and during the preliminary phases of the second Gulf War can be described as biased (Katovsky & Carlson 2004). There are two circumstances for the formation of this kind of information setting. The first circumstance has press officers incapable of finding reliable sources to present a nonconforming judgment (Johansen & Joslyn 2008). During an important episode of foreign policy, like the second Persian Gulf War, the president has the benefit of access to military and tactical information that adversaries do not have (Katovsky & Carlson 2004). Moreover, the president boosts this advantage by taking advantage of the bully platform; the executive can successfully draw a tactical direction, prime the people, and establish the plan (Katovsky & Carlson 2004). These fundamental leverages tend to discourage adversaries who are likely to present guardedly encouraging statements or say very little since they do not desire to come out unpatriotic and ignorant during preparations for the war (Johansen & Joslyn 2008). A second circumstance is that the media evaluates themselves as a display of advocacy for the executive body (ibid, 591). Definitely the media is greatly dependent on the government for information and may not desire to jeopardize their access. A number of media channels, in the period leading up to the second Gulf War, decline to recognize anti-war publicity (Darley 2005). Press officers with rebellious views were discharged, or threatened into ‘behaving’ (ibid, p. 122) or condemned as detached or marginal. Hence, when the media is hesitant to question the government’s allegations and the political opponent is reluctant or incapable of providing censure, the press merely becomes a communication channel for a government, instead of an important information filter (Kennedy 1993). There are substantial proofs that this biased information setting took place during the second Gulf War. As stated in Johansen and Joslyn (2008, 591), an investigation carried out by Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) in 2003 monitored anti- and pro-war channels on six primary information sources for the initial three weeks of the conflict, studying 1,617 live information sources coming out in reports about Iraq on news bulletins of PBS New Hour, Fox Special Report, CNN, NBC Nightly News, CBS Evening News, and ABC World News Tonight. The investigation reported that pro-war standpoints engulfed anti-war perspectives (Johansen & Joslyn 2008, 591): Nearly two-thirds of all sources were categorized as prowar while a mere 10% were anti-war. Official voices- U.S. government and military officials, past and present- dominated, effectively crowding out alternative viewpoints, including foreign perspectives and civilians. Of the 840 U.S. sources who were former or current government or military officials, only three were identified as holding anti-war opinions- Senator Robert Byrd, Representative Pete Stark, and Representative Dennis Kucinich. The two networks least likely to present commentary critical of the war were Fox News Channel and CBS, although all networks emphasized a pro-war message. Eighty-one percent of Fox’s sources were pro-war. CBS was a close second with 77% and NBC featured the lowest proportion of pro-war voices at 65%. The information environment before and during the preliminary stages of the second Gulf War hence offered the administration of Bush with little opposition. An absence of political dissent alongside an obviously obliging media presented the informed public an idea of powerful conspiracies and a number of rational intentions for war (Johansen & Joslyn 2008). It is expected that a public exposed to a tremendously pro-war media context would broadly recognize the circulated information about Iraq. The Media War Western armed forces have paid significant attention to the ways through which they could affect the influence and operations of the media. If they decide to take advantage of them, the instruments available to them may involve confusion, exclusion, misrepresentation, and dishonesty: the instruments of political propaganda implemented to the objectives of war efforts (Murphy & White 2007). A lot of public officials will resent the above statement, but it is still the case that, in several instances, the objectives of the armed forces in quest for victory and the media in quest for a narrative do not match (Payne 2005). The continuity between media activities and public affairs is subtle, as show in the pertinent US Army Field Manual, Public Affairs Tactics, Techniques and Procedures. As stated in the manual, “Information operations involve a variety of disciplines and activities [including] information campaigns” (Payne 2005, 82). Public affairs “support to [information operations] requires… synchronization of efforts with other organizations and agencies to ensure themes and messages are consistent and deconflicted” (ibid, p. 82). These above passages show that public affair is not viewed as a body in itself, but as an ‘associated operation’ (Payne 2005, 82) of the information environment. The armed forces of the United States, as illustrated by the manual, is keenly informed of the significance of media depiction of war, and has created a range of strategies to influence that representation (Katovsky & Carlson 2004). Personnel of public affairs initiate their advocacy for information activities by outlining a Public Affairs Estimate, which involves an evaluation of media operations (Katovsky & Carlson 2004). Deceiving the media directly, according to Rather (2001), in numerous instances, make a lot of sense, but manipulating media messages and information disclosure vigorously does, and the objective of the personnel of public affairs is exactly that to manipulate information flow in order to boost the political and military advantage of the United States. Evidently, utter deceptions do have a presence on the combat zone. A commander that is media informed will also try to exploit the media to openly influence the agendas of the opponents, as component of a martial deception plan (Kennedy 1993). The existing US Army field handbook on media activities presents additional information on the military leverages that can be obtained from skilled maneuvering of the media (Katovsky & Carlson 2004). It emphasizes, deception of the military is “a fundamental instrument of military art. Its ultimate goal is to deceive adversaries and others about friendly force dispositions, capabilities, vulnerabilities, and intentions” (Payne 2005, 82). The handbook further illustrates the processes through which an opponent can be tricked through the creation of “a plausible, but false, view of the situation, which will lead the deception target into acing in a manner that will accomplish the commander’s goal. Once the story is completed, the [Deception Working Group] determines the deception means necessary to portray the events and indicators” (ibid, p. 82). The handbook, maybe reasonably in an unspecified document, does not focus openly on the exploitation of the media as a way of circulating the deception’s narrative. There is also a broad array of non-media techniques of tricking enemies (Smith 1999). However, the handbook does refer to one event of military deception via media exploitation: in 1973, the Egyptian passage to the Suez, which it provides as an illustration of ‘conditioning an adversary’ (Payne 2005, 83). It stresses that the Egyptians “used deceptive measures and a broad range of centrally directed and controlled deception events involving political and military activities. These included… publishing reports in the press that officers would be allowed leave for the annual hajj pilgrimage” (ibid, p. 83). Regardless of the objectives of war deception or more widely in an attempt to manipulate elite and public view of a war, the armed forces of the US have an obsession with manipulating the media perception of the occurrences in the combat zone (Darley 2005). During the second Gulf War, the two primary techniques by which the armed forces of the US tried to affect the media were the tactics of strategic news exposure. Strategic News Coverage Implanting with divisions deployed on the combat zone is just one stage at which the armed forces can try to manipulate the media (Katovsky & Carlson 2004). At some point in the Iraq war, the armed forces of the US introduced a strategic perception of the combat zone to the press people through regular updates at the Central Command (CENTCOM) control centers in Washington and Qatar (Payne 2005). The armed forces of Britain also conducted regular seminars in London, prompted to suit the news rounds and lessen the possibility of contradictory information with the other associated media channels (Payne 2005). However, the tactical news coverage gained a varied reaction from the media. A number of newscasters sent off to CENTCOM control centers in Qatar articulated discontent at the circulation of information from allied command centers (Murphy & White 2007). For instance, on March 2003, New York Magazine’s Michael Wolff gained recognition from convened press officers when he raised this question to the briefer of CENTCOM, “Why should we stay? What’s the value to us for what we learn at this million-dollar press center?” (Payne 2005, 83) The direct response was that journalists should seek to draw together the whole selection of information. He stressed the function of implanted media, which report a quite critical narrative, but furthered that the briefings of Central Command (ibid, p. 83) were a vital component of the larger picture. However the volume and value of information given at the updates did not constantly backs up the remarks of the CENTCOM briefer (Payne 2005, 84): for instance, hardly any is disclosed about the major operations of Special Forces, the quantity of the tanks demolished by the alliance, the number of missed targets (ibid, p. 84). Within this point of view, the emphasis on implanted coverage permitted the military to manipulate the major depiction of the war, although they had inadequate power over the strategic reporting of implanted journalists (Katovsky & Carlson 2004). And, as stated by Darley (2005), implanting deflected the attention of the media from the virtual dearth of information accessible somewhere else. It is not easy to take a broad view of media and international relations, a diverse unit that involves delegates of many organizations with diverse cultural and political backdrops. Yet it is nevertheless an unquestionable reality that the entire global media are not an objective instrument on the combat zone (Lewis & Rose 2002). If the presence of the media is weakening the military and political tactics, it is reasonable to manipulate them. If the media is operating in a subjective manner, it may even appear necessary to target them (Rather 2001). However, maybe targeting is legal if the opponent is exploiting the media to dominate militarily (Johansen & Joslyn 2008), such as via deception agendas. Conclusions The hostilities and conflicts of the recent decade have thoroughly shown that the media, supposedly apolitical players, have become a vital instrument in numerous global conflicts. In wars concerning developed Western armed forces, this is highlighted by the development and growing significance of media operations and the information environment. Success in the media battle is critically vital to war schemers of Western countries, and ever more advanced techniques for carrying this out have been formed—although with varied outcomes. And although the goals and techniques of staging and preparing for war have transformed remarkably during the recent years, the media itself has experienced a drastic change as well. The occurrences and trends of the recent decade barely require repetition; from daily news broadcasts to the growth of Internet public affairs forum and websites, the media-savvy citizens have a broader array of information sources than in the past, and the armed forces has an equally more complicated duty of overpowering the information warfare. The current official perspectives encompassing the standpoint of the media during wars were launched prior to these occurrences. The issue at this point is whether an agreement can be established that thoroughly deals with the new facts of media coverage of war. With journalists more and more susceptible under the present system, maybe it is now necessary to take into account a transformed humanitarian policy particularly dealing with the concerns discussed. References Darley, W. “War Policy, Public Support and the Media.” Parameters 35.2 (2005): 121+ Johansen, M. & Joslyn, M. “Political Persuasion during Times of Crisis: The Effects of Education and News Media on Citizens’ Factual Information about Iraq.” Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 85.3 (2008): 591+ Katovsky, B. & Carlson, T. Embedded: The Media at War in Iraq. Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2004. Kennedy, W. The Military and the Media: Why the Press Cannot be Trusted to Cover a War. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993. Lewis, D. & Rose, R. “The President, the Press, and the War-Making Power: An Analysis of Media Coverage Prior to the Persian Gulf War.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 32.3 (2002): 559+ Murphy, D. & White, J. “Propaganda: Can a Word Decide a War?” Parameters 37.3 (2007): 15+ Payne, K. “The Media as an Instrument of War.” Parameters 35.1 (2005): 81+ Rather, D. “Truth on the Battlefield.” Harvard International Review 23.1 (2001): 66. Smith, H. The Media and the Gulf War. Washington, DC: Seven Locks Press, 1992. Smith, J. War & Press Freedom: The Problem of Prerogative Power. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Read More