Thought-Factory.net Philosophical Conversations Public Opinion philosophy.com Junk for code
PortElliot2.jpg
'An aphorism, properly stamped and molded, has not been "deciphered" when it has simply been read; rather one has then to begin its interpretation, for which is required an art of interpretation.' -- Nietzsche, 'On the Genealogy of Morals'
RECENT ENTRIES
SEARCH
ARCHIVES
Weblog Links
Library
Fields
Philosophers
Writers
Connections
Magazines
E-Resources
Academics
Other
www.thought-factory.net
'An aphorism, properly stamped and molded, has not been "deciphered" when it has simply been read; rather one has then to begin its interpretation, for which is required an art of interpretation.' -- Nietzsche, 'On the Genealogy of Morals'

images of war « Previous | |Next »
June 16, 2010

The April 2010 issue of Media, War & Conflict is about the images of war. Images of war are politically powerful, which is why they have been contested and restricted throughout history. Images tell a more compelling story than words, providing good reasons for governments’ traditional attempts to control images either by not showing them to the public or by imposing tight restrictions on their use.

Shahira Fahmy in the Introduction says that:

Scholars of mass communication most often analyze text at the expense of images, hence underplaying the significance of the visual in connecting with audiences. According to Messaris and Abraham (2001): ‘The special qualities of visuals – their iconicity, their indexicality, and especially their syntactic implicitness – make them very effective tools for framing and articulating ideological messages’ (p. 220, emphases in original). In other words, they suggest that visuals and text are distinct yet equally important parts of the news-making process.

Despite recognizing the importance of images, only a few scholars have examined the visual portrayal of news events.
They found image choices dramatically influenced how the audience perceived these events. Past studies have consistently shown that competing media outlets portray events in different ways, carefully selecting particular images as visuals are consistently used to present specific views to the audience.This is particularly true during times of crisis.

In her recent book, Packaging Terrorism, Moeller (2009) asserts that governments and their media have been generally interested in ‘distancing their own citizens and audiences from the negative human consequences of their nations’ own policies – and are equally interested in emphasizing the human costs of their enemies’ strategies’ (pp. 147–8).

Moeller's basic premises in this text are that “terrorism has been the main event of the twenty-first century”, that such attacks are “likely to be framed so that [the news outlet’s] audience feels vulnerable”, both terrorists and the “War on Terror” exploit a politics of fear, that “news organizations chauvinistic[ally] focus on the news that is geographically and psychologically closest to their audience” and that both terrorists and the Western media “want to keep their own message in the public view”.

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 7:26 PM |