War and Media

Forthcoming in 2005

 

War and Media:
Censorship, Propaganda, and Myth in the Information Age

 

On October 17, 2001, ten days into the US bombing of Afghanistan, and the day that the well-known peace activist and Jesuit Priest, Father Daniel Berrigan spoke at Fordham University, I printed a news item from the web page of the UK Guardian newspaper. The story reported that the Pentagon spent millions of dollars to prevent Western news outlets from acquiring highly accurate satellite pictures of the effects of bombing in Afghanistan....more

 

 

From the journal EXTRA! That's Militainment: The Pentagon's media-friendly "reality" war
June, 2003

 

Chapter

 

Black Hawk Down as ‘Real Entertainment’: Reinventing the War Hero for the 21st Century, (2002) paper submitted to the International Communication Association, 2003 Conference, San Diego, California. Abstract of Black Hawk Down

 

Editorial

 

War, Propaganda, and The Groves of Academe

Education seems to be one of the only antidotes to the power of persuasion. The President’s war rhetoric against Saddam Hussein sounds strangely familiar, harking back to the early uses of demonization that characterized WWI propaganda. How are attempts to close down freedom of speech on college campuses connected to this history...more

 

Videotape

 

Turning Tragedy into War

 

Produced 10 days after the attack on the World Trade Center by the Paper Tiger Television collective, this videotape offers a critique of the media coverage of the September 11th terrorist attacks. The media’s immediate call for war closed a broader public debate on issues of foreign policy from an informed perspective. Segments include on the ground coverage by independent filmmakers of New York in the days that followed the attacks. Turing Tragedy into War has been widely distributed and was part of the New York Documentary Festival held at the Museum of Modern Art (December 2001) featuring independent films and videos produced after 9-11. 

 

Book Review

 

Words of Fire: Independent Journalist Who Challenge Dictators, Drug Lords, and Other Enemies of a Free Press. Anthony Collings. New York University Press: New York, 2001. Journal of Communication, forthcoming

 

 

Publications on the topic of

War and Media

 

Is ‘Balanced’ Coverage Really Fair Coverage? (1995). Journalism: Stories from the Real World, Retta Blaney (ed.), North American Press: New York.

 

Oliver North and the News, (1992). Journalism and Popular Culture. Peter Dahlgren and Colin Sparks (eds.), Sage Publications: London. pp. 171-189.

 

Consuming the Persian Gulf War: Changing Modes of Nonfiction Communication, (1992). Proceedings: 9th Annual Intercultural and International Communication Conference. University of Miami. (May) pp. 112-115.

 

Media, Marketing and Politics in the Age of Fragmentation, (1992). The Ideology of International Communications, Monograph Series: #4. The Institute for Media Analysis: New York. pp. 47-68.

 

The Press, the Public, and the New World Order, (1991). Media Development: Special Issue, Reporting the Gulf War. (October) pp. 20-26.

 

CNN Covers the War: Iraqi Dupes or Pentagon Promoters? (1991). with Paolo Carpignano. Extra!  Special Issue on the Gulf War. Vol.4, No.3 (May) pp. 12‑13. 

  

Visions of Instability: US Television's Law and Order News of El Salvador, (1990). The Media Reader. Manuel Alvarado and John O. Thompson (eds.), British Film Institute Publishing: London. pp. 229‑243.  reprinted from Media, Culture and Society. Sage: London. Vol.10. pp. 239‑264.

 

Images of War: Photojournalism, Ideology and Central America, (1989). Latin American Perspectives. Issue # 61, Volume 16, Number 2 (Spring) pp. 96‑114.