Dr Mohamed Kirat
By Dr Mohamed Kirat
The military often manipulates the mainstream media, by restricting or managing what information is presented and hence what the public are told. For them it is part of the war and indispensable to control the media. This can be done through organizing media sessions and daily press briefings, or through providing managed access to war zones, to even planting stories. This has happened throughout the 20th century. Over time then, the way that the media covers conflicts and wars degrades in quality, critique and objectiveness.
Propaganda can serve to mobilise people behind a cause, but often at the cost of exaggerating, misrepresenting, or even falsifying, misinforming, and lying about the issues in order to gain that support. While the issue of propaganda often is discussed in the context of militarism, war and war-mongering, it is around us in all aspects of life. As the various examples below will show, common tactics in propaganda often used by either side include: Using selective stories that come over as widely-covering and objective; partial facts, or historical context, reinforcing reasons and motivations to act due to threats on the security of the individual. Other tactics include narrow sources of “experts” to provide insights into the situation. For example, the mainstream media typically interview retired military personnel for many conflict-related issues, or treat official government sources as fact, rather than just one perspective that needs to be verified and researched. Another widely used tactic is demonising the “enemy” who does not fit the picture of what is “right”. Using a narrow range of discourse, whereby judgments are often made while the boundary of discourse itself, or the framework within which the opinions are formed, are often not discussed. The narrow focus then helps to serve the interests of the propagandists. Investigative journalism is not practiced at all; only selected facts and arguments are used to highlight some parts of the story and hide others.
American government and its various institutions as well as some media organisations used public relations extensively in shaping up and forming the issues, story line and slogans to prepare American as well as the world public opinion to accept the war on Iraq and look forward to the US to combat terrorism through Saddam and his regime and to clean the region from weapons of mass destruction.
To control the situation and master the war the US government engaged in public relations activities and all forms of propaganda. The US used black propaganda in the Iraq war: The story line of defence against villain’s threat to use the ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction, nuclear warheads. As it has done in the second Gulf War, the US government rained down from the air millions of Arabic language leaflets asking Iraqis to let down Saddam, surrender and tune into radio broadcasts from America. One American government official asserted that “There is a media war going on in the Middle East region. We need to engage in that war and present balance in a region that is highly charged emotionally. The images they are seeing are not the same images we are seeing”.
The third Gulf War was the first–ever Internet war. In 1991, the second Gulf War has been called the cable TV war that brought CNN to world attention. The Vietnam War was called the first television war. World war II was basically a radio war. World War I was called the first propaganda war. Wars in the digital era are “fought not just with bullets and rifles and tanks, but with tactics and words and a communication environment”, wrote Anthony Pratkanis, a professor of psychology at the University of California at Santa Cruz. The biggest and most important public relations tactics undertaken by the US in the Iraq war was the embedding of about 600 journalists with the troops doing the actual fighting. In fact, the embedded journalists were only telling one side of the story. The US propaganda machine staged media relations by organising daily briefings in Silia US military headquarters in Qatar, the Pentagon, the State Department and the White House. The Americans also used generals, liuetenants and celebrity briefers and orchestrated visual
imagery.
Galtung laid out 12 points of concern where journalism often goes wrong when dealing with violence, conflicts and wars. Each implicitly suggests more explicit remedies. Decontextualising violence: focusing on the irrational without looking at the reasons for unresolved conflicts and polarisation. Dualism: reducing the number of parties in a conflict to two, when often more are involved. Stories that just focus on internal developments often ignore such outside or “external” forces as foreign governments and transnational companies. Manichaeism: portraying one side as good and demonising the other as “evil.” Armageddon: presenting violence as inevitable, omitting alternatives. Focusing on individual acts of violence while avoiding structural causes, like poverty, government neglect and military or police repression. Confusion: focusing only on the conflict arena (i.e., the battlefield or location of violent incidents) but not on the forces and factors that influence the violence. Excluding and omitting the bereaved, thus never explaining why there are acts of revenge and spirals of violence. Failure to explore the causes of escalation and the impact of media coverage itself. Failure to explore the goals of outside interventionists, especially big powers. Failure to explore peace proposals and offer images of peaceful outcomes. Confusing ceasefires and negotiations with actual peace. Omitting reconciliation: conflicts tend to reemerge if attention is not paid to efforts to heal fractured societies. When news about attempts to resolve conflicts is absent, fatalism is reinforced. This can help engender even more violence, when people have no images or information about possible peaceful outcomes and the promise of healing.
Propaganda and public relations tactics are going to be part of every war in the near future. Governments will frame and shape the issues, story line, slogans and catch phrases to manipulate local and international public opinion and serve their purposes at the expense of truth, objectivity, impartiality, ethics, freedom of expression and human rights.
Mohamed Kirat is a professor of Public Relations and Mass Communication at the College of Arts and Sciences, Qatar University.
By Dr Mohamed Kirat
The military often manipulates the mainstream media, by restricting or managing what information is presented and hence what the public are told. For them it is part of the war and indispensable to control the media. This can be done through organizing media sessions and daily press briefings, or through providing managed access to war zones, to even planting stories. This has happened throughout the 20th century. Over time then, the way that the media covers conflicts and wars degrades in quality, critique and objectiveness.
Propaganda can serve to mobilise people behind a cause, but often at the cost of exaggerating, misrepresenting, or even falsifying, misinforming, and lying about the issues in order to gain that support. While the issue of propaganda often is discussed in the context of militarism, war and war-mongering, it is around us in all aspects of life. As the various examples below will show, common tactics in propaganda often used by either side include: Using selective stories that come over as widely-covering and objective; partial facts, or historical context, reinforcing reasons and motivations to act due to threats on the security of the individual. Other tactics include narrow sources of “experts” to provide insights into the situation. For example, the mainstream media typically interview retired military personnel for many conflict-related issues, or treat official government sources as fact, rather than just one perspective that needs to be verified and researched. Another widely used tactic is demonising the “enemy” who does not fit the picture of what is “right”. Using a narrow range of discourse, whereby judgments are often made while the boundary of discourse itself, or the framework within which the opinions are formed, are often not discussed. The narrow focus then helps to serve the interests of the propagandists. Investigative journalism is not practiced at all; only selected facts and arguments are used to highlight some parts of the story and hide others.
American government and its various institutions as well as some media organisations used public relations extensively in shaping up and forming the issues, story line and slogans to prepare American as well as the world public opinion to accept the war on Iraq and look forward to the US to combat terrorism through Saddam and his regime and to clean the region from weapons of mass destruction.
To control the situation and master the war the US government engaged in public relations activities and all forms of propaganda. The US used black propaganda in the Iraq war: The story line of defence against villain’s threat to use the ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction, nuclear warheads. As it has done in the second Gulf War, the US government rained down from the air millions of Arabic language leaflets asking Iraqis to let down Saddam, surrender and tune into radio broadcasts from America. One American government official asserted that “There is a media war going on in the Middle East region. We need to engage in that war and present balance in a region that is highly charged emotionally. The images they are seeing are not the same images we are seeing”.
The third Gulf War was the first–ever Internet war. In 1991, the second Gulf War has been called the cable TV war that brought CNN to world attention. The Vietnam War was called the first television war. World war II was basically a radio war. World War I was called the first propaganda war. Wars in the digital era are “fought not just with bullets and rifles and tanks, but with tactics and words and a communication environment”, wrote Anthony Pratkanis, a professor of psychology at the University of California at Santa Cruz. The biggest and most important public relations tactics undertaken by the US in the Iraq war was the embedding of about 600 journalists with the troops doing the actual fighting. In fact, the embedded journalists were only telling one side of the story. The US propaganda machine staged media relations by organising daily briefings in Silia US military headquarters in Qatar, the Pentagon, the State Department and the White House. The Americans also used generals, liuetenants and celebrity briefers and orchestrated visual
imagery.
Galtung laid out 12 points of concern where journalism often goes wrong when dealing with violence, conflicts and wars. Each implicitly suggests more explicit remedies. Decontextualising violence: focusing on the irrational without looking at the reasons for unresolved conflicts and polarisation. Dualism: reducing the number of parties in a conflict to two, when often more are involved. Stories that just focus on internal developments often ignore such outside or “external” forces as foreign governments and transnational companies. Manichaeism: portraying one side as good and demonising the other as “evil.” Armageddon: presenting violence as inevitable, omitting alternatives. Focusing on individual acts of violence while avoiding structural causes, like poverty, government neglect and military or police repression. Confusion: focusing only on the conflict arena (i.e., the battlefield or location of violent incidents) but not on the forces and factors that influence the violence. Excluding and omitting the bereaved, thus never explaining why there are acts of revenge and spirals of violence. Failure to explore the causes of escalation and the impact of media coverage itself. Failure to explore the goals of outside interventionists, especially big powers. Failure to explore peace proposals and offer images of peaceful outcomes. Confusing ceasefires and negotiations with actual peace. Omitting reconciliation: conflicts tend to reemerge if attention is not paid to efforts to heal fractured societies. When news about attempts to resolve conflicts is absent, fatalism is reinforced. This can help engender even more violence, when people have no images or information about possible peaceful outcomes and the promise of healing.
Propaganda and public relations tactics are going to be part of every war in the near future. Governments will frame and shape the issues, story line, slogans and catch phrases to manipulate local and international public opinion and serve their purposes at the expense of truth, objectivity, impartiality, ethics, freedom of expression and human rights.
Mohamed Kirat is a professor of Public Relations and Mass Communication at the College of Arts and Sciences, Qatar University.
