Operation Iraqi Freedom Essay

Since the blend of Operation Iraqi Freedom on 20th of March 2003, the media reportage of this final result in handed-down and untested media has been both(prenominal)(prenominal) intensive and pervasive. The issue of whether the contend is justify and of whether ibn Talal Hussein Hussein had indeed violate the United states Security Council Resolution 1441 by possessing weapons of fix destruction has been reflectd in the scat up to the war. By the time the compaction forces moved into Iraqi in a war aimed at toppling the Saddam regime, put oning audience were unable to escape creation bombarded by the onslaught of word of honor depute and nurture coming through to them. Front foliates of any major intelligence agencypaper, as well as precious airtime on television and radiocommunication lucre in Sydney and beyond return been devoted to following this war. scour the internet is awash with breaking intelligence activity, discussion forums, and each ant ithetical variety of randomness non available in the traditional media turn outlets.With much(prenominal) extensive reporting by in tout ensemble(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) the different media, it is inevitable that the media twine would principal to immensely differing views in war coverage. This is beca intention having so many people involved in this big media steadyt would mean that the avouch(prenominal) crookes of the media owners as well as the editors and journalists would all(a) in all affect the mood that the countersign is conveyed. each superstar of these media gatekeepers would be privately professional personfessional or anti-war, and this would inevitably come crosswise to the populace in the way that the password in organism reported. For example, Peter Jennings, who is the news anchor of the American Broadcasting passel is well known for bringing on air his negative perspective virtually the war.According to Singleton, et al (2003 36 1), with the exception of populaceally funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation, most of the former(a) media outlets atomic number 18 privately owned and consequently heart-to-heart in principle to the committal of the owners, directly or indirectly (through the justness of anticipated reactions). Even with the Broadcasting function Act 1992, the Australian media is dominated by provided a few concentrated players, which would in turn affect how the media covers the war. bottom Schwartz, who is a Swinburne University media and communications senior reader commented on the widely earthly concernised statistic that all bar one of Rupert Murdochs 170-odd paper and the Fox network have a pro-war position, said that no doubt all his editors are noning Murdochs views, and that Fox is fabulously badalmost pure political relation line. (cited in Seccombe 2003 1).However, it is worth noning that even though the different news media locally might adopt a pro or anti-war stance, they would all still be adopting the corresponding western perspective of the war. As Fandy (20031) says, the coverage of the war by Arab TV networks like Al-Jazeera and Abu Dhabi TV shows a vastly different perspective of the war, such that in comparison, viewers might think that a different war was being reported.This move on illustrates the point that the coverage of the war is perpetually reported in relation to the law of proximity of the issue at hand, creating several(prenominal) sort of double standards. For example, according to Frisk (2001 489) terrorist act no longer meat terrorism. It is not a definition it is a political contrivance. Terrorists are those who use violence against the location that is using the word. To adopt the word means that we have sop upn a expression in the Middle East, not betwixt right and wrong, good and evil, David and Goliath, but with one side of combatants against another. For journalists in the Middle East, the use of t he word terrorism is akin to place a gun its employment turns the newsperson into a participant in the war.Parenti (1986 30) asserts that the mass media essentially are spicyly centralized outlets that proffer a remarkably homogenised fare. The wide use of news wires like Associated Press and Reuters by all the major broadsheets in Australia means that the war coverage locally would be generically the same. Even if the local newspapers and television networks go down to send their own reporters to the disjuncture to demand a different perspectives, it would still be not make a difference, as they are all covering the same press conferences given by underlying Command. They are too subjected to pool arrangements at certain times, when only selected journalists and cameramen would be allowed to take footages in the field due to logistical constraints. This means that much of the western mankind would be viewing the same footages on television no matter which network stati on a viewer was honoring the news on.Advances in technology such as the satellite makes it possible technically for the put up presentation of the war in the Gulf to the rest of the world (Wood 1967 27). The relatively new feature of war reporting, which involves embedding journalists and cameramen with coalition troops also mean that the war has turned into approximately kind of reality show for viewers who turn on the television. viewers can now make believe live feed from the battlefield, and benefit from the first-hand exclusives and war perspectives from the engraft reporters and cameramen who travel with the army regiments and military units. However, this new aspect of war journalism is not without its drawbacks.While viewers do puzzle conterminous breaking news coverage, such technological advances have its downsides as well. The immediate streaming of live feexplosive detection system to TV station means that viewers are subject to the speculations of the reporters who are stationed in the Gulf in the first place any official confirmation of the news can be received. For example, on that point was an model when, according to Pros and Cons of Embedded Journalism (2003 1)implant correspondents for several news organisations reported eyesight a convoy of up to great hundred Iraqi tanks leaving the southern urban center of Basra, and most news outlets reported a large troop movement. The next day, a spokesman for the British military said the big movement was really just 14 tanks.Viewers can also vex a distorted view of the war, as it is virtually impossible for the journalists to report the news with in a truly heading and impartial light when they are stationed within the battalions, experiencing camaraderie with the troops and the savouring the lighting of being in the frontline in the middle of all the action. Objectivity was to include a strict adherence to facts, a salubrious scepticism of institutions, and a need to affiliate facts together to form a large picture of the war (Willis 1991 60). As gatekeepers, the media thus shows a constructed, and mostly distorted version of what is reality.In fact, as Howard Kurtz, a journalist with The capital letter Post puts it, they have been taking colossal flak for overly sympathetic reporting, reject by some by some part of the military propaganda machine (cited in Tee 2003 2).According to Williams (1999 4), propaganda disseminated during wartime is based rough short- to medium term objectives to celebrate actual achievement or hide embarrassmentsto refer national pride, create a jot of righteousness and incite hatred for the competitor . Hence, it is not surprising the media bias and perceptions do play a part in the ensuring the scope and accuracy of the war coverage. Even the publicly funded ABC is shaping its products to fit its comprehend audience, and this is not a perspective which is value-neutral (Lumby 1999 41).Since there are so many different media sources competing for the viewers attention, media owners might also want their reporters to sensationalise their coverage to stand out from the competition. Much of what is deemed to be news precious is ofttimes centered on the governments mistakes, on sensation and crisis (Singleton, et al 2003 360). As Moeller (1999 34) puts it, Media moguls have long known that suffering, instead than good news, cheats. Viewers are not interested in the mundane free-and-easy news they would rather watch something iniquitous or thrilling.However, no matter how bias the media coverage is, it might not in reality have much of an effect on the viewers who have already do up their minds roughly the war. This is because, according to the cognitive dissonance theory, we have, built into the workings of our mind, a mechanism that creates an uncomfortable feeling of dissonance, or lack of harmony, when we become aware of some inconsistency among the various locatings, beliefs, and items of knowledge that produce our mental store (Gray 2002 520). These individuals are presumable to be their own media gatekeepers, filtering out information that might cause them to doubt their own current view, and looking out only for information that would reinforce it.Although the media might not explicitly tell the public what to think, it manages to get them thinking about the war in general and the various issues involved, via the agenda- stageting function of the media that the public has been subjected to. According to Roscoe et al (cited in schedule scope Setting the Terms of case 20001)Rather than seeing the media as grievous the viewer what to think, television presentations can be seen as perplexting the agenda in terms of how and which issues should be discussed television presentations variety the events in such a way as to promote particular accounts as being the legitimate and valid, while other accounts are excluded and marginalised. By doing so, the parameters within which the debate can be conducted are set outthe media can be seen as having the power to frame the debate by promoting the legitimacy of certain representations and accountsviewers are active but within the parameters set by the text.According to state of ward (2002 405), the micro-level equal to this function would be that of agenda-priming, where individuals make judgments about issues based on information instantaneously on hand and from easily retrieved memories. The constant quantity coverage of the war in all the different news mediums means that viewers would believe that the war is an important issue, worthy of thought and discussion.While news from the traditional forms of media like television, radio and newspapers may be limited by time and blank space constraints, as well as being highly selective and bias, the emergence of the meshing has made it possible for people to cumulate information about the war from all angles. This development of technology make s it possible for viewers to get a balanced view of the war through alternate sources from the meshing in the comfort of their homes, particularly in Australia, where computer ownership and Internet approaching is becoming widespread (Singleton et al 2003 369). The public can now choose to school themselves by getting both sides of the report card, from both the western media, as well as the angle taken by the Gulf media. Nevertheless, quality coverage and a take exception to political agenda put pull up stakes depend on the use of insights from both the domestic and foreign environments to extend the parameters of news coverage, commentary and debate in the Australian media (Payne 2000 167).According to investigative journalist rear Pilger, (in Propaganda contends 20033), the quality of the debate is very high among the publicturn to the letters page or listen to people in their homes and shops. Instead of taking an apathetic attitude towards this Gulf War, the public has t aken a more pro-active stand by organising stay rallies as well as setting up various charities and donations for post-war Iraq.Hence, even though there is some form of media bias present in the pervasive coverage of the war in all forms of media locally, it has stock-still contributed to the reasoned debate, and not public hysteria over the war.ReferencesAgenda Setting Setting the Terms of Reference, Online, 6 February 2000 extremeUpdate, Available http//wwww.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/media/setterms.html 6 May 2003.Fandy, M. 2003, Perceptions where Al-Jazeera & Co. are coming from,The Washington Post, March 30 B01, viewed 4 April 2003, LexisNexis All new-fangleds.Frisk, R. 2001, Pity the Nation Lebanon at War, Oxford advanced York OxfordUniversity Press.Gray, P. 2002, Psychology, 4th rev. ed., New York Worth Publishers.Lumby, C. 1999, Gotcha purport in a Tabloid World, St Leonards Allen and Unwin.Moeller, S. D. 1999, Compassion Fatigue How the Media sell Disease , Famine,War and Death, New York Routledge.Parenti, M. 1986, Inventing Reality The political relation of the mass media, New York StMartins Press.Payne, P. 2000, coverage of Australias involvement in the Vietnam War inForeign devils and other journalists, eds D. Kingsbury, E. Loo & P. Payne,Clayton Monash Asia Institute.Propaganda Wars (radio program), 30 January 2003. The Media Report, ABC receiving setInternational, Presenter M. OReagan.Pros and Cons of Embedded Journalism. Online. 27 March 2003 last update.Available http//www.pbs.org/newshour/spear carrier/features/jan-june03/embed_3-27_printout.html 6 May 2003.Seccombe, M 2003, Propaganda Games Give a Distorted View of Reality, Sydney morning time Herald, 26 March, Available www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/25/1048354604340.html 2 April 2003.Singleton, Aitkin, jinks & Warhurst 2003, Australian Political Institutions, 6th rev.ed., Melbourne Longman.Tee, H. C. 2003, War The Ultimate Reality Show, The fountainhead Times, 7 Ap ril,Available http//straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/life/story/0,4386181610,00.html 8 April 2003.Ward, I. 2002, Media major power In Government, Politics and Power in Australia, eds. JSummers, D. Woodward & A. Parkin, Melbourne, Longman.Williams, J. F. 1999, Anzacs, the Media and the Great War, Sydney University ofNew South Wales Press.Willis, J. 1991, The Shadow World Life between the News Media and Reality,New York Praeger.Wood, W. A. 1967, electronic Journalism., New York & London Columbia