War Making and Propaganda: Media Responsibility for Human Rights Communication

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the selective news coverage and propaganda that preceded and followed the 9/11/01 event, using a model of news coverage or War Programming developed by the first author in earlier work. The ordered sequence of activities in War Programming begins from reportage and visual reports on the most recent war to the reports on the next war. The model is applied to the Iraq war to enhance our theoretical capacity to explain modern propaganda and the resultant lack of focus on human rights. By analyzing the news media context and organizational reasons for propaganda, the authors find a predictable war story was told by mainstream media, which omitted from the story a focus upon human rights violations. The authors develop the contention that a new approach is needed to offer critique before the event of war. Media framing and formats must change if future wars, aided by propaganda, are to be avoided.

Citation

Altheide, D.L. and Grimes, J.N. (2011), "War Making and Propaganda: Media Responsibility for Human Rights Communication", Papademas, D. (Ed.) Human Rights and Media (Studies in Communications, Vol. 6), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 59-76. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0275-7982(2011)0000006006