Revisiting analyses of media-war relationships in times of contingency and fluidity

Abstract

The review essay deals with two recent publications on media-war relationships: Tumber and Palmer's ‘Media at war. The Iraq crisis’ (2004) and Thussu and Freedman's ‘War and the media. Reporting conflict 24/7’ (2003/2005). Two questions are raised in this essay. First, is it still relevant to look back at two publications on media-war relationships when (at least some of) the wars they focus on have fundamentally altered? And even more importantly, is there a convincing reason for actually reading them? Answering these questions allows for a more fundamental reflection on the importance of academic activities in relationship to issues of media and war. Three answers are suggested: the importance and necessity of documenting, analyzing and archiving war, the facilitation of academic and societal dialogue on the issues of war, and the analyses of the political, economical, cultural, technological and ideological contexts that transcend singular wars. Especially the last domain is considered crucial. Although each war is characterized by a high degree of specificity and contingency, which unavoidably influences and alters the media-war-military relationships, the contextual analyses enable uncovering the presence of more structural aspects in these relationships. More specifically, these contextual analyses teach us most about the role of power and ideology in the representational processes that deal with war. These analyses again show the powerlessness of media and media professionals to escape from the dichotomized ideological model of war and from the (direct or indirect) legitimization of what Knightley termed ‘the institution of war’.