War, Propaganda and the Media — Global Issues
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War, Propaganda and the Media
by Anup Shah This Page Last Updated Thursday, March 31, 2005
We must remember that in time of war what is said on the enemy’s side of the front is always propaganda,
and what is said on our side of the front is truth and righteousness, the cause of humanity and a crusade for
peace.
— Walter Lippmann
Probably every conflict is fought on at least two grounds: the battlefield and the minds of the people via propaganda. The
“good guys” and the “bad guys” can often both be guilty of misleading their people with distortions, exaggerations,
subjectivity, inaccuracy and even fabrications, in to receive support and a sense of legitimacy.
This web page has the following sub-sections:
Elements Of Propaganda
Propaganda And War
Propaganda When Preparing Or Justifying War
Military Control Of Information
Information Operations
Embedded Journalists: An Advantage For The Military
Dilemma Of Journalists And Wartime Coverage
Wider Propaganda
Propaganda In Democracies
Why Does So Much Propaganda Work?
Wanting To Believe The Best Of Ourselves
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War, Propaganda and the Media — Global Issues
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Fear-Mongering And Distorting Facts
Media Management And Public Relations Is Very Professional
Disseminating Prepackaged, Even Fake News
Smear Tactics Are Increasing In Sophistication
Narrowing The Range Of Debate
Some Detailed Examples
Elements Of Propaganda
Propaganda can serve to rally people behind a cause, but often at the cost of exaggerating, misrepresenting, or even lying
about the issues in 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 wide-covering and objective.
Partial facts, or historical context
Reinforcing reasons and motivations to act due to threats on the security of the individual.
Narrow sources of “experts” to provide insights in to 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).
Demonizing 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.
Some of the following sections look into how propaganda is used in various ways, expanding on the above list of tactics
and devices.
Propaganda And War
At times of war, or build up for war, messages of extremities and hate, combined with emotions of honor and
righteousness interplay to provide powerful propaganda for a cause.
The first casualty when war comes is Truth
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— U.S. Senator Hiram Johnson, 1917
Many say that it is inevitable in war that people will die. Yet, in many cases, war itself is not inevitable, and propaganda
is often employed to go closer to war, if that is the preferred foreign policy option. Indeed, once war starts, civilian
casualties are unfortunately almost a guaranteed certainty.
In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.
— Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister during World War II
Those who promote the negative image of the “enemy” may often reinforce it with rhetoric about the righteousness of
themselves; the attempt is to muster up support and nurture the belief that what is to be done is in the positive and
beneficial interest of everyone. Often, the principles used to demonize the other, is not used to judge the self, leading to
accusations of double standards and hypocrisy.
Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man
will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any
refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for
the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.
— Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger, 1916, Ch.9
The list of tactics used in propaganda listed further above is also expressed in a similar way by Johann Galtung, a
professor of Peace Studies and summarized here by Danny Schechter:
[Professor] Galtung laid out 12 points of concern where journalism often goes wrong when dealing with
violence. Each implicitly suggests more explicit remedies.
1. Decontextualizing violence: focusing on the irrational without looking at the reasons for unresolved
conflicts and polarization.
2. Dualism: reducing the number of parties in a conflict to two, when often more are involved. Stories
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that just focus on internal developments often ignore such outside or “external” forces as foreign
governments and transnational companies.
3. Manicheanism: portraying one side as good and demonizing the other as “evil.”
4. Armageddon: presenting violence as inevitable, omitting alternatives.
5. Focusing on individual acts of violence while avoiding structural causes, like poverty,
government neglect and military or police repression.
6. 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.
7. Excluding and omitting the bereaved, thus never explaining why there are acts of revenge and
spirals of violence.
8. Failure to explore the causes of escalation and the impact of media coverage itself.
9. Failure to explore the goals of outside interventionists, especially big powers.
10. Failure to explore peace proposals and offer images of peaceful outcomes.
11. Confusing cease-fires and negotiations with actual peace.
12. Omitting reconciliation: conflicts tend to reemerge if attention is not paid to efforts to heal
fractured societies. When news about attempts to resolve conflicts are absent, fatalism is reinforced.
That can help engender even more violence, when people have no images or information about possible
peaceful outcomes and the promise of healing.
— Danny Schechter, Covering Violence: How Should Media Handle Conflict?, July 18, 2001 (Emphasis Added)
Arthur Siegel, a social science professor at York University in Toronto, describes four levels of varieties of propaganda:
No matter how it is spread, propaganda comes in four basic varieties, said Arthur Siegel, social science
professor at York University in Toronto, whose 1996 book Radio Canada International examines World War
II and Cold War propaganda.
“The first level is the Big Lie, adapted by Hitler and Stalin. The state-controlled Egyptian press has been
spreading a Big Lie, saying the World Trade Center was attacked by Israel to embarrass Arabs,” said Siegel.
“The second layer says, ‘It doesn’t have to be the truth, so long as it’s plausible.’
“The third strategy is to tell the truth but withhold the other side’s point of view.
“The fourth and most productive is to tell the truth, the good and the bad, the losses and the gains.
“Governments in Western society take the last three steps. They avoid the Big Lie, which nobody here will
http://www.mediachannel.org/views/dissector/coveringviolence.shtml
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swallow,” Siegel said.
— Beth Gillin, U.S. intensifies the war of words, The Philadelphia Inequirer, October 21, 2001
With the last point above, Siegel is pointing out that as well as “enemies” having propaganda mechanisms, we also have
our own propaganda mechanisms.
Propaganda When Preparing Or Justifying War
In preparing for or justifying war, additional techniques are often employed, knowingly or unknowingly:
Ottosen identifies several key stages of a military campaign to “soften up” public opinion through the media
in preparation for an armed intervention. These are:
The Preliminary Stage—during which the country concerned comes to the news, portrayed as a cause for
“mounting concern” because of poverty/dictatorship/anarchy;
The Justification Stage—during which big news is produced to lend urgency to the case for armed
intervention to bring about a rapid restitution of “normality”;
The Implementation Stage—when pooling and censorship provide control of coverage;
The Aftermath—during which normality is portrayed as returning to the region, before it once again drops
down the news agenda.
O’Kane notes “there is always a dead baby story” and it comes at the key point of the Justification Stage—in
the form of a story whose apparent urgency brooks no delay—specifically, no time for cool deliberation or
negotiating on peace proposals. Human interest stories … are ideal for engendering this atmosphere.
— The Peace Journalist Option, Poiesis.org, August 1997
(O’Kane’s reference to the dead baby story is about the 1991 Gulf War where a U.S. public relations firm got a Kuwaiti
Ambassador’s daughter to pose as a nurse claiming she saw Iraqi troops killing babies in hospitals. The purpose of this
was to create arousal and demonize Iraq so war was more acceptable. More information about this is on this site’s Iraq
section.)
http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/MiddleEast/TerrorInUSA/Words.asp
http://www.globalissues.org/HumanRights/Media/Articles/PJO.asp
http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/MiddleEast/Iraq.asp
http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/MiddleEast/Iraq.asp
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Award-winning investigative journalist, Phillip Knightley, in an article for the British paper, The Guardian also points
out four stages in preparing a nation for war:
1. The crisis
The reporting of a crisis which negotiations appear unable to resolve. Politicians, while calling for diplomacy, warn of
military retaliation. The media reports this as “We’re on the brink of war”, or “War is inevitable”, etc.
2. The demonisation of the enemy’s leader
Comparing the leader with Hitler is a good start because of the instant images that Hitler’s name provokes.
3. The demonisation of the enemy as individuals
For example, to suggest the enemy is insane.
4. Atrocities
Even making up stories to whip up and strengthen emotional reactions.
Knightley also points to the dilemma that while some stories are known to have been fabrications and outright lies,
others may be true. The trouble is, he asks, “how can we tell?” His answer is unfortunately not too reassuring: “The
media demands that we trust it but too often that trust has been betrayed.” The difficulty that honest journalists face is
also hinted to in another article by Knightley:
One difficulty is that the media have little or no memory. War correspondents have short working lives and
there is no tradition or means for passing on their knowledge and experience. The military, on the other
hand, is an institution and goes on forever. The military learned a lot from Vietnam and these days plans its
media strategy with as much attention as its military strategy.
— Phillip Knightley, Fighting dirty, The Guardian, March 20, 2000
Miren Guiterrez, editor-in-chief of Inter Press Service notes a number of elements of propaganda taking the more recent
wars into account, the “War on terror” and the Iraq crisis. Summing up his short but detailed report, he includes the
following as propaganda strategies:
Incompleteness
Inaccuracy
Driving the agenda
Milking the story (maximizing media coverage of a particular issue by the careful use of briefings, leaking pieces of a
jigsaw to different outlets, allowing journalists to piece the story together and drive the story up the news agenda,
etc.)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4270014,00.html
http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,3975978,00.html
http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=24386
http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=24386
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Exploiting that we want to believe the best of ourselves
Perception Management (in particular by using PR firms)
Reinforcing existing attitudes
Simple, repetitious and emotional phrases (e.g. war on terror, axis of evil, weapons of mass destruction, shock and
awe, war of liberation, etc)
Military Control Of Information
Military control of information during war time is also a major contributing factor to propaganda, especially when the
media go along with it without question. The military recognizes the values of media and information control very well.
Information Operations
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 paramount to control the media. This can involve all manner of activities,
from 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
degrades in quality, critique and objectiveness.
“Information is the currency of victory” an August 1996 U.S. Army field manual. From a military’s perspective,
information warfare is another front on which a battle must be fought. However, as well as needing to deceive
adversaries, in to maintain public support, information to their own public must no doubt be managed as well.
That makes sense from a military perspective. Sometimes the public can be willing to sacrifice detailed knowledge. But
that can also lead to unaccountability and when information that is presented has been managed such, propaganda is
often the result. Beelman also describes how this Information Operations is used to manage information:
For reporters covering this war [on terrorism], the challenge is not just in getting unfettered and uncensored
access to U.S. troops and the battlefield—a long and mostly losing struggle in the past—but in discerning
between information and disinformation. That is made all the more difficult by a 24-hour news cycle,
advanced technology, and the military’s growing fondness for a discipline it calls “Information Operations.”
IO, as it is known, groups together information functions ranging from public affairs (PA, the military
spokespersons corps) to military deception and psychological operations, or PSYOP. What this means is that
people whose job traditionally has been to talk to the media and divulge truthfully what they are able to tell
now work hand-in-glove with those whose job it is to support battlefield operations with information, not all
of which may be truthful.
— Maud S. Beelman, The Dangers of Disinformation in the War on Terrorism, Coverage of Terrorism Women
and Journalism: International Perspectives, from Nieman Reports Magazine, Winter 2001, Vol. 55, No.4,
p.16. (from The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University)
http://www.mediachannel.org/atissue/warpeace/
http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/01-4NRwinter/NRwinter01.pdf
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Danny Schechter, also referring to the article above by Beelman, describes Information Operations more bluntly as being
“a way of obscuring and sanitizing that negative-sounding term ‘propaganda’ so that our ‘information warriors’ can do
their thing with a minimum of public attention as they seek to engineer friendly write ups and cumulative impact.” This,
he points out, can be accomplished via several strategies:
Overloading the Media »
Ideological Appeals »
Spinning Information »
Withholding Information »
Co-Option And Collusion »
Embedded Journalists: An Advantage For The Military
During the short invasion of Iraq in 2003, journalists were “embedded” with various Coalition forces. This was an idea
born from the public relations industry, and provided media outlets a detailed and fascinating view for their audiences.
For the military, however, it provided a means to control what large audiences would see, to some extent. Independent
journalists would be looked upon more suspiciously. In a way, embedded journalists were unwittingly (sometimes
knowingly) making a decision to be biased in their reporting, in favor of the Coalition troops. If an embedded journalist
was to report unfavorably on coalition forces they were accompanying they would not get any cooperation.
So, in a sense allowing journalists to get closer meant the military had more chance to try and manage the message.
In U.K., the History Channel broadcasted a documentary on August 21, 2004, titled War Spin: Correspondent. This
documentary looked at Coalition media management for the Iraq war and noted numerous things including the
following:
Embedded journalists allowed the military to maximize imagery while providing minimal insight into the real
issues;
Central Command (where all those military press briefings were held) was the main center from which to:
Filter, manage and drip-feed journalists with what they wanted to provide;
Gloss over set-backs, while dwelling on successes;
Limit the facts and context;
Even feed lies to journalists;
Use spin in various ways, such as making it seems as though reports are coming from troops on the ground,
which Central Command can then confirm, so as to appear real;
Carefully plan the range of topics that could be discussed with reporters, and what to avoid.
In summary then, the documentary concluded and implied that the media had successfully been designated a mostly
controllable role by the military, which would no doubt improve in the future.
http://www.mediachannel.org/views/dissector/io.shtml
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For more about the issues of embedded journalism during the Iraq invasion, various propaganda techniques employed,
and more, see this web site’s Iraq media section.
Dilemma Of Journalists And Wartime Coverage
With military conflicts then, reporting raises an interesting dilemma for some; one the one hand, the military wish to
present various aspects that would support a campaign, while on the other hand, a journalist is supposed to be critical
and not necessarily fall in line. The is captured well by Jane Kirtley, a professor of Media Ethics and Law:
Shortly after the end of the American Civil War, journalist F. Colburn Adams wrote, “The future historian of
the late war will have [a] very difficult task to perform … sifting the truth from falsehood as it appears in
official records.”
Similar to the oft-repeated axiom that truth is the first casualty of war, Adams’ observation succinctly
summarizes the nub of the conflict between the military and the news media. The military’s mission is to
fight, and to win, whatever conflict may present itself-preferably on the battlefield but certainly in public
opinion and the history books. The journalist, on the other hand, is a skeptic if not a cynic and aims to seek,
find and report the truth — a mission both parties often view as incompatible with successful warfare, which
depends on secrecy and deception as much as superior strategy, tactics, weaponry and manpower.
— Jane Kirtley, Enough is Enough, Media Studies Journal, October 15, 2001
Often, especially when covering conflicts, the media organizations are subject to various constraints by governments,
military, corporate pressure, economic interests, etc. Sometimes, however, the media are more than willing to go along
with what could be described as self-censorship, as highlighted vividly in the following:
We live in a dirty and dangerous world. There are some things the general public does not need to know
about and shouldn’t. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep
its secrets and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows.
— Katharine Graham, Washington Post owner speaking at CIA’s Langley, Virginia headquarters in 1988,
Reported in Regardie’s Magazine, January, 1990, Quoted from David McGowan, Derailing Democracy,
(Common Courage Press, 2000), p.109.
http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/MiddleEast/Iraq/PostWar/Media.asp
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11716
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Other times, the sources of information are limited. For example, “Information warfare” of a military or government
might be targeted at “enemy” nations and groups, but often affects their own populations:
In [many cases], the U.S. and other western news media depend on the military for information…. And when
the information that military officers provide to the public is part of a process that generates propaganda
and places a high value on deceit, deception and denial, then truth is indeed likely to be high on the casualty
list.
— William M. Arkin, Media principles: Killed by friendly fire in US infowar, Index on Censorship, 13
November 2002
Journalist Harold Evans addresses the issue of war correspondents duties, as being the challenge of patriotism versus
professionalism:
The history of warfare suggests this is not a false antithesis. Governments, understandably, put a priority on
nurturing the morale of the armed forces and the people, intimidating an enemy with the force of the
national will They have few scruples about whether they are being fair and just as their propaganda
demonizes an alien leader or even a whole population. The enemy is doing the same to them. That is the
emotion wars generate, inviting a competitive ecstasy of hate. There is a duel in vicious stereotypes in
propaganda posters, illustrations and headlines; populations would be astounded if they could see how they
and their leaders are portrayed by the other side. Authority resents it when a newspaper or broadcast shades
the black and white.
… Atrocity stories have been debased currency in the war of words. The other side’s are propaganda and
should be ignored or discredited by patriotic correspondents; ours are an integral part of the cause, and
should be propagated with conviction, uniting people in vengefulness for a cause higher than pedantry. Only
after the conflict, the zealots’ argument runs, is there time enough to sift the ashes for truth. History knows
now that the Germans did not, as charged in World War I, toss Belgian babies in the air and catch them on
bayonets, nor boil down German corpses for glycerin for munitions—a story invented by a British
correspondent being pressed by his office for news of atrocities. The French did not, as the German press
reported, routinely gouge out the eyes of captured German soldiers, or chop off their fingers for the rings on
them. Iraqi soldiers invading Kuwait did not toss premature babies out of incubators, as The Sunday
Telegraph in London, and then the Los Angeles Times, reported, quoting Reuters. The story was an
invention of the Citizens for a Free Kuwait lobby in Washington and the teen-age “witness” who testified to
Congress was coached by the lobby’s public relations company. It was only two years later that the whole
http://www.indexonline.org/news/20021213_unitedstates.shtml
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thing was exposed for the fraud it was. But the myth galvanized public opinion at a critical moment on the
need to go to war, as it was intended to.
… History is a mausoleum of errant emotions: Who is the more patriotic—the government that conceals the
blunders its soldiers endure, the cruelties they may inflict, or the correspondent who exposes them so that
they might be rectified?
… [In the dilemmas journalists often have between reporting and intervening], Alan Dower, who reported
the Korean War for the Melbourne Herald … reporter Rene Cutforth and cameraman Cyril Page saw a
column of women in Seoul being marched off to jail; many were carrying babies. The journalists were told
the families were all to be shot because someone in the street had identified them as communists. Dower,
who was a commando before he was a reporter, was carrying a carbine. He used it to bully his way into the
jail, where the trio of journalists found that the women had been made to kneel with their babies in front of
an open pit, two machine guns at their backs. Dower threatened to shoot the guard unless he took the trio to
the prison governor’s office. There Dower aimed his carbine at the governor and threatened: “If those
machine guns fire, I’ll shoot you between the eyes.” Dower, making another threat, that of publicity, secured
a promise from the United Nations command in Seoul that it would stamp out such practices.
Did Dower break the normal limits of journalism? Yes, and he was right to do so. One’s first duty is to
humanity, and there are exceptional occasions when that duty overrides the canons of any profession.
— Harold Evans, Propaganda vs. Professionalism, War Stories, Newseum (undated)
Phillip Knightley, in his award-winning book The First Casualty traces a history of media reporting of wars and conflicts
and towards the end says:
The sad truth is that in the new millennium, government propaganda prepares its citizens for war so
skillfully that it is quite likely that they do not want the truthful, objective and balanced reporting that good
war correspondents once did their best to provide.
— Phillip Knightley, The First Casualty, (Prion Books, 1975, 2000 revised edition) p.525
Wider Propaganda
http://www.newseum.org/warstories/essay/propaganda.htm
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a principle familiar to propagandists is that the doctrine to be instilled in the target audience should not be
articulated: that would only expose them to reflection, inquiry, and, very likely, ridicule. The proper
procedure is to drill them home by constantly presupposing them, so that they become the very condition for
discourse.
— Noam Chomsky
It is easier to dominate someone if they are unaware of being dominated. Colonised and colonisers both
know that domination is not just based on physical supremacy. Control of hearts and minds follows military
conquest. Which is why any empire that wants to last must capture the souls of its subjects.
— Ignacio Ramonet, The control of pleasure, Le Monde diplomatique, May 2000
But the issue of propaganda can go beyond just war, to many other areas of life such as the political, commercial and
social …
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