These days, media is a major means of informing the audience about everything that happens in the world. Moreover, it has a great influence on the public opinion and, in this regard, it is often used by government to control the country. As to prove this statement, it should be mentioned that there are many media companies are owned by the government.
During the Iraq War, media played an important role in informing people about the conflict between the USA and Iraq. In fact, it shaped the “image of war” and was a moving force in propaganda certain ideas. As a matter of fact, propaganda and bias in the media is logical and inevitable, moreover, the situation is the same all over the world.
The propaganda and bias in the news media is clearly demonstrated in the documentary “Control Room”. It reflects how the media of both countries positioned the war objectives and shaped the views of people about the caused, aims and outcomes of the war actions. Thus, in this paper we are going to analyze the role of the US media and the news channel Al Jazeera during the Iraq war and how those media re-framed the events.
The first issue we are going to discuss is the basis for the bias in the news media. Thus, media is a product created by people of a certain nation for this nation. So, it is no wonder that it is subjected to the cultural influence. We know that every nation and culture has its personal and unique world view shaped by religion, culture and history.
Obviously, media reflects this view and, as a consequence the truth of the world events is lighted subjectively. In other words, it is adjusted to the cultural beliefs and “view” of people of a certain nation. Taking into consideration the information mentioned earlier, we can come to a conclusion that it is obvious that both the US and Arab media use bias and propaganda during the war.
First of all, the bias is noticeable in fact that both media re-framed the aims and objectives of both governments, events that took place during the war and even the “name” of the war. It was made with the purpose of shaping and changing of the public opinion and core beliefs. The main task of the media is to create certain messages and frame them so that the audience could understand them in the appropriate way. As the example of the US media re-framing can be take the process of naming.
So, the Western media was aimed at creating a message that the Iraq war was the war for peace and democracy, they positioned the actions of the US military as the actions of peacemaker fighting against terrorism. In this light, the US media named the war as “The Second Gulf War II,” “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” or the “Anglo-American-Iraq War” to demonstrate that the US were fighting for the “world aims” and were supported by other countries as well.
A positive connotation can be noticed in the names given. In addition, the U. S. media made use of such notions as “freedom” and “liberation” to demonstrate the “kind intentions” of the war. Furthermore, to reinforce the US citizens’ beliefs that Iraq brought the thread of terrorism, they positioned the terrorism attack on September 11, 2001 as “push” to enter the war in Iraq.
The same method of “shaping the public opinion” was used by the Arab media. Thus, people Iraq new this war as “The Third Gulf War”. It was often positioned as the “U.S. War on Iraq”, or even “U.S.A. Invasion of Iraq”, and often as The U.S.A. Aggression or Attack on Iraq”. Some even called it as “The Terrorism of the USA on Iraq”.
Consequently, we can see that the Arab media sent the message with aggressive and negative connotation. In such way, it tried to encourage the public opinion and create a very negative image of the US forces. The criticism of the war in the Arab world was very harsh and often lack balance, especially, on such channel as Al Jazeera that became the most disputable in the Arab world.
Moreover, it was banned by several Arab governments for the criticism of their regime. It should also been mentioned that Arab media was very active during the Iraq war, as the Arab viewers had never seen so many “real-time information”, as during the conflict. The main message of the Iraq media was that the USA as well as Coalition launched a war with the purpose to establish their control over the Iraq oil.
Regardless all claims concerning Saddam’s removal (such as protection from terrorism, saving lives of civilian people, establishment of democracy, etc), the public opinion was that Coalition wanted to have control over their country ignoring their traditions and religion, moreover, media positioned the Coalition as the “Anti-Muslim” organization that was fighting against Muslim people.
But, the Iraq media did not mention the threat of the Weapons of Mass Destruction program which actually was one of the main reasons mentioned by Bush during the address to the Iraq government in the interview.
In the documentary “Control Room”, the journalist Al Jazeera Hassan Ibrahim commented on the work of the US media mentioned that they manages to great job and support the government, he said that he had never seen such propaganda before. At the same time, senior producer of Al Jazeera provided the idea that if a leader did not put media propaganda on the top of the agenda, he was a bad military.
Thus, he emphasized the role of media in the war. However, both press officer of US marines and Al Jazeera staff, claim that the opposite side presented the events in the wrong light. Though, Khader said that the function of the media is purely informative and aims at education the masses about democracy and awaken them to protect their freedom.
So, the involvement of the media in the war cannot be argued. As we can see from the documentary, many journalists were in the heart of the military actions and provided a one side view of the war. The ones, who were freelances, came under attack. Thus, we can say that apart from the informative function, the media played a very important role as the means of the government to control the public opinion.
Thus, the role of the media during the war is great. It is a major means of propaganda and shaping the public opinion. Both the US and Arab media managed to personalize the war and contributed to the conflict. In addition, they created the negative coverage of the opposed sides.