Medias Role in the War on Terror - Case Study Example

Media’s Role in the War on Terror Introduction Jeffery was very excited and there were reasons for his excitement. Firstly, he was getting a chance to spend the whole day with his mother. Secondly, the excitement was also for the Canadian honey, his favorite, which he and his mother were planning to buy today from the grocery store. Thirdly, it was the excitement of visiting three different schools out of which, master Jeffery will have to select one, as “his school.” Lastly, it was the thought of watching the World Trade Center from closely that was making him feel like “butterflies in his stomach.” Maria, Jeffery’s mother, left her home early in the morning because they had a tight and bust schedule ahead. The first thing in their “things to do list” was to visit the insurance company’s office, which was at some floor of World Trade Center. Maria and Jeffery were just at the gate of their insurance company’s office that they heard some huge and terrible explosion from every side. Within seconds of that terrible explosion sound, it was dust and gas surrounding them from all sides. With no sign of electricity, everybody was running in a completely chaos to find a way to get out of the building. No sign of consideration, no sign of humanity, and no sign of “after you” was there in that panic situation. It was “every man for himself.” Maria with no further delay took Jeffery in her arms followed the crowd in search of an exit gate. However, it was not that simple. Maria felt a force pushing her from behind and she fell down. More importantly, he lost hold of Jeffery who slipped down from her hands on the ground. A kid screaming on the ground is so obvious for us; however, it was not that obvious and attention gaining in that situation, except for her mother. People kept on crushing the smooth and soft body of master Jeffery and Maria in the meanwhile, was trying her best to get to her son but she could not succeed. Unfortunately when she got there, there was nothing but some pieces of intestines covered with blood. Nothing on earth is so terrible for a mother watching his child die like this. Jeffery was a victim of 9/11 attacks on the US and Maria as well. To this date, she is still in the New Jersey Mental Hospital. She has lost her mental balance and every time when she starts recovering the picture of her son covered in blood and crushed in so many pieces, takes her back to that same mental imbalanced condition. It was not only Maria and Jeffery amongst the victims; however, hundreds and thousands other people lost their lives, their property, their loved ones, their wealth or their state of well being due to these attacks directly or indirectly (Steuter & Wills, pp. 69-78, 2008). There is a huge debate on how these four planes, hijacked by Al-Qaeda were able to attack and cause so much destruction. In fact, even after more than 8 years of these attacks, this mystery still is mystery. However, this paper neglects those events and focuses on all the post-event happenings of September 11 attacks. More importantly, this paper tries to make an attempt to critically evaluate and understand the involvement, efforts, role and connection of the international media in translating those events for the general public. One of the biggest post event results of the September 11 attacks was the US War on Terror. The rest of this paper would examine the interpretation of war on terror by the international media, focusing more on the Western media. Without any doubts, media is something, which has even more power than any other weapon on this planet. In this world of globalization and change, media is not merely an instrument of communication. Definitely, it has many more than this. It has ability to make friends and at the same time, it can create unwanted enemies. This paper holds the view that the role of media has not been significantly constructive and unbiased but the role of media has been “to develop, produce, strengthen, communicate, and reinforce their respective propagandas” (Steuter & Wills, pp. 69-78, 2008). The rest of the paper tries to prove this statement with various examples. Discussion This paper starts with a story of Jeffery. Let us consider another one. The story of Abdullah, an orphan living in Kabul, Afghanistan, who was sleeping at the night of October 10, 2001 with her mother Zeniab. He had just landed in the world of dreams and Zeniab was still sitting besides her to ensure that he is sleeping. Suddenly, Zeniab witnessed some lighting, thunderstorm was her first guess; however, she was incorrect because she soon came to know that these are the missiles attacks from the US army. Without giving, any second thoughts people started running her and there out of their homes for a place, which they think would be safe. In the meanwhile, the bombs and missiles are still raining. Zeniab held Abdullah tightly in the same Maria held Jeffery. Unfortunately, Zeniab dropped Abdullah in the same way as Maria lost hold of Jeffery (Steuter & Wills, pp. 69-78, 2008). Before Zeniab could stand up and take little Abdullah in her arms one more time, piece of metal that came out of a missile that had hit the land near them, fell on Abdullah’s head. Zeniab managed to make it afterwards but it was too late. Abdullah lost half of his skull and when Zeniab held him in her arms all he could do is hold her mother with both of his hands with his half skull and blood coming out of his body. Obviously, Abdullah died within seconds and Zeniab lost her mental balance in the same way Maria did (Steuter & Wills, pp. 69-78, 2008). Two stories, somewhat same happenings, same results but different people and different media mediums have given them different interpretations. For the Western media, the loss of Jeffery was something unbearable. They thought that the whole world should know the pain and trauma that Maria is feeling. The Western media labeled the death of Jeffery and others as a terrorist, inhuman, brutal, ruthless, and wicked act by Bin Laden and his group, namely Al-Qaeda. Without any doubts whatever Bin laden and his 19 friends did by hijacking those four planes, was a terrorist and brutal act and they deserve all the possible punishment for this. Nevertheless, the question here is that what about Abdullah and all those thousands of other people who have lost their lives in bombings and attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001 (Crocker, Hampson, & Aall, pp. 46-85, 2007). What about Zeniab? She lost her child had to bury him with a broken skull. Is this loss in any possible way can be referred as an acceptable and tolerable act? If not, then why the Western media is was quiet when Abdullah died. The Western media kept on discussing the tragic death of Jeffery uninterruptedly, but it was not even a single time that they even bother to talk about thousands of innocent Abdullahs who lost their lives due to US army attacks on Afghanistan. The whole world shared Maria’s sadness since it was there on all the channels but there was nobody to acknowledge the trauma and pain of Zeniab. In this regard, the David Edwards from Media lens who keeps a close eye on all the media activities criticizes the British and American Media for not covering the sufferings of the Afghan people (Norris, Kern, & Just, pp. 1-54, 2003). May be Western media thought that only mothers of the west have motherly emotions and all others are merely fake. However, this is not the exact answer. The question remains there. Was the Western media really biased in their job after the 9/11 attacks or it is just merely an attempt to create doubts on their honest and credibility? The paper assumes that following the September 11 attacks, the only thing that the media has been doing is to “run propaganda” according to their inclination, nationality or affiliation. Interestingly, whatever this paper assumes for the whole media, the Western media specially CNN, BBC, Sky news and Fox News assume this for the Middle Eastern channel namely Al-Jazeera. Al-Jazeera has been showing the messages of Bin Laden and his friends from Al-Qaeda after the 9/11 attacks (Nohrstedt & Ottosen, pp. 79-100, 2004). Therefore, the Western media has been tagging Al-Jazeera as a biased channel, inclined more towards Taliban and related elements. However, surprisingly, not many news channels until yet have pointed out that channels like BBC and CNN are more west friendly and this is a kind of biasness (Veer & Veer, pp. 103-109, 2004). So many other events, actions, and happenings make it evident for us to understand this biasness of the Western media. The next portion of this paper attempts to focus some of those events. Immediately after the attacks of September 11, President George W. Bush declared these events and their reaction as “war” (Nohrstedt & Ottosen, pp. 79-100, 2004). Justification for this statement on emotional grounds is there but in political terms, it would have long lasting effects. This is because, understandably, the US administration decided to use the International Law rather than the criminal law for this event. Technically, police should have been doing the entire job after this attack but by calling it a war, the US administration was smart enough to know that they would get protection from the article 51 of the United Nations Charter of Human Rights (Crocker, Hampson, & Aall, pp. 46-85, 2007). It talks about the idea of “self-defense” especially during a “war” (Kavoori, & Fraley, pp. 41-89, 2006). In addition, initiating the activity, one month after the event is understandable. Then hunting him during a war on the other side of the world, killing innocent people, and then ruling out their right of “self-defense” is also somewhat questionable (Hunt & Rygiel, pp. 56-73, 2006). Unfortunately, none of the patriotic media mediums of the west, dared to question or even divert the attention of the public towards this side of the picture (Miniter, pp. 1-6, 8-16, 21-36, 48-97, 2005). In addition to the concept of war, is the concept of “prisoners of war.” According to the Geneva Convention and the Human Rights Charter of the United Nations, it is the duty of any nation to preserve, maintain and respect the dignity of prisoners of war and make sure they get treatment in a civilized way (Kavoori, & Fraley, pp. 41-89, 2006) (Thussu & Freedman, pp. 74-95, 2003). However, Guantanamo Bay presents a different side of the picture. Media seems to fail in providing facts regarding Guantanamo Bay but seems to be at the top in providing the exact number of deaths of US army man in Afghanistan and Iraq (Crocker, Hampson, & Aall, pp. 46-85, 2007). The questions that the media asked in the after math of these attacks were of “whom,” “when,” “how” and “where.” However, unfortunately they forgot to ask the question of “why” (Nohrstedt & Ottosen, pp. 79-100, 2004). Why should anyone dare to take so much of risk? Why would a whole bunch of people risk their lives for ensuring destruction of the United States? What had the United States done to them? President Bush answered that they did this because they had problems with the freedom that the United States provided to its citizens (Veer & Veer, pp. 103-109, 2004). What the Western media tries to hide is the relationship of CIA and the American intelligence systems with Taliban and Al-Qaeda. They fail to acknowledge that back in 1980’s, when the United States wanted to defeat the Soviet Union indirectly it trained and funded these elements to do the job on their behalf (Hunt & Rygiel, pp. 56-73, 2006). Moreover, the role of media has been to provide justification to the war on terror, create sympathy for the United States and hatred for elements related to Bin Laden and his group (Kavoori, & Fraley, pp. 41-89, 2006). Repeatedly, after these events the Western media diverted its attention towards portraying the United States as peace loving, democratic, pluralistic, and supportive to all other nations (Miniter, pp. 1-6, 8-16, 21-36, 48-97, 2005). This has been the biggest error made by them because there are so many other happenings in contrast with their claim. The inability to United States to play its role in solving the issue of Kashmir (Nohrstedt & Ottosen, pp. 79-100, 2004), its continuous support to Israel, support to colonist elements (Thussu & Freedman, pp. 74-95, 2003), dominance in United Nations, conspiracies against China (Thussu & Freedman, pp. 74-95, 2003) and many others are so many of these proves. Again, the Western media seems to be quiet on these issues during this “war on terror.” What added to this surprise was the increased focus on panic creating statements of the US administration by the Western media. During this “war on terror,” the Western media has been great at focusing all the attention of the public towards US administration’s statements that give the message of possibility of another attack but of a greater magnitude. This seems to be a clear propaganda of the media, ordered by the United States (Hunt & Rygiel, pp. 56-73, 2006). The first thought that should have come to the mind of the media people would have been that if it is so easy for them to attack then it means that our agencies and defense system are inefficient (Miniter, pp. 1-6, 8-16, 21-36, 48-97, 2005). However, the media instead of focusing this pointed out the importance of eliminating these elements. Yet another example of irresponsibility of media is there unbiased filtering of information, data, and statistics regarding the international polls. Western media has been at the front in showing all those surveys that back the military actions of the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, they try their level best not to highlight all those surveys where people have strongly expressed their dissatisfaction over the killings of innocent people, human rights violation and increased expenditures on war on terror (Dimaggio, pp. 14-89, 2008). Another example could be of Tony Benn’s bill that he presented in the British Parliament. That bill requested the British and the American Army not to remain careful in bombing the area of Central Baghdad (Dimaggio, pp. 14-89, 2008) (Hunt & Rygiel, pp. 56-73, 2006). He explained the reason that there is an old zoo in the central Baghdad and hundreds of animals are there. Obviously, that zoo is being affected by all the bombings of the Allied forces so he requested them to take this matter into consideration in the name of humanity and make sure that al the animals are safe (Dimaggio, pp. 14-89, 2008). The Western media restricted themselves in just praising this effort by Tony Benn. However, they did not bother to mention that the Allied forces should be extremely careful in bombing every single inch of the whole country of Iraq since there are people living there with their properties, ancient buildings and so many other things. Conclusion The Western administrations are well aware of the power of media and CNN effect (Media effect). This has been the reason why they have been trying to dominate the media information. After all the above-mentioned discussion, it becomes easier to comment that the role of media in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks and the ongoing war on terror has not been satisfactory. As mentioned earlier in the paper that media is not just a medium of information transfer; however, it is more than that. Unfortunately, media has not been working, and it seems that they did not have understood their degree of responsibility fully. They are doing what the Aga Khan IV identified a couple of decades back. He said that media is always so busy in pointing the cat who is at the tree and is unable to get down rather those millions of those cats who are sleeping at their homes quietly. Media’s role in war on terror is one of such examples (Spencer, pp. 146-198, 2008). Media became so busy in portraying a small group of Bin Laden and his friends as terrorists that the public got an impression that all Muslims are terrorists. Due to uncritical and insensible approaches of media people in reporting the war on terror, the masses misunderstood the Muslims all around the World. In short, the media should demonstrate much better sensible, unbiased, and critical approach to the ongoing war on terror. This should be acknowledged here that that the media of today is looking a bit more sensible than the media of 2001. In other words, there are some improvements; however, again this paper assumes that still there is a long way to travel, and huge room of improvement. In other words, media will have to change its approach, as well as perspective in order to eliminate its adverse effects on the society. Analysis of the studies has indicated that besides politics, media is an influential component of the human society, and it must play its role and contribute for progress and development of the society in a responsible manner. Conclusively, the paper has discussed some of the significant aspects of the role of media in the War on Terror. The paper included the case study that will play a crucial role in understanding the media’s role in a comprehensive manner. Additionally, although paper discussed the topic in detail, however it is anticipation that further research will be very efficient in acquired a more critical perspective regarding the topic. It is an expectation that the paper will be beneficial for students, teachers, and professionals in better understanding of the topic. References Crocker, Chester A., Hampson, Fen O., & Aall, Pamela R. (2007). Leashing the dogs of war: conflict management in a divided world. US Institute of Peace Press. Dimaggio, Anthony R. (2008). Mass media, mass propaganda: examining American news in the "War on Terror.” Lexington Books. Hess, S., Kalb, Marvin L., & Brookings Institution. (2003). The media and the war on terrorism. Brookings Institution Press. Hunt, Krista, & Rygiel, Kim. (2006). (En) gendering the war on terror: war stories and camouflaged politics. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. Kavoori, Anandam P., & Fraley, Todd. (2006). Media, terrorism, and theory: a reader. Rowman & Littlefield. Miniter, R. (2005). Disinformation: 22 media myths that undermine the War on Terror. Regnery Publishing. Nohrstedt, Stig A., & Ottosen, R. (2004). U.S. and the others: global media images on "The war on terror.” Nordicom. Norris, P., Kern, M., & Just, Marion R. (2003). Framing terrorism: the news media, the government, and the public. Routledge. Spencer, Graham. (2008). The Media and Peace: From Vietnam to the 'War on Terror'. Palgrave Macmillan. Steuter, Erin, & Wills, Deborah. (2008). At war with metaphor: media, propaganda, and racism in the war on terror. Lexington Books. Thussu, Daya K., & Freedman, Des. (2003). War and the media: reporting conflict 24/7. Sage. Veer, Van D., & Veer, Peter V. D. (2004). Media, War, and Terrorism: Responses from the Middle East and Asia. Taylor and Francis. Read More