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The Media of Conflict. The New ‘Ethnic’ Wars and the Media. Introduction. Leveraging ‘Ethnic Enmity’. Introduction . Contemporary butchery is increasingly explained as a perverse blossoming of how people ‘really’ are, their inner ethnic core.
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The Media of Conflict The New ‘Ethnic’ Wars and the Media
Introduction Leveraging ‘Ethnic Enmity’
Introduction • Contemporary butchery is increasingly explained as a perverse blossoming of how people ‘really’ are, their inner ethnic core. • Ethnic enmity traditionally seen as a product of ninetieth century colonialism • Constant battles between ethnic groups for control of state powers
Introduction • Ethnic wars are depicted as “inevitable” • Described as the ultimate result of the qualities inherent in the character of the communities involved. • White house officials make decisions with “one eye on CNN”
Introduction • Only time combatants are not fighting is through a greater external force. • Such was the case with the depiction of the Bosnian War
Introduction “The problem is that reducing the social and economic realities, and the complex historical causes, that underlie and prolong these conflicts to ‘ethnicity de-politicizes them”
Internal Media and Ethnicity “Depicting your enemy as a mad, ravaging tyrant has been part of the stock-in-trade of propagandists since wars began, and the role of the media in inciting theses feeling is part of twentieth-century warfare.”
Internal Media and Ethnicity • Depends on a willing –to-be-persuaded audience • Old barbarities are revived by new atrocities • Sudden breaking of seemingly secure bond of neighbors plays into xenophobia
The External Republics • External Republic: Immigrants who remain loyal to their region of origin; they consume news from their home region and even at a distance influence policy.
The External Republics • In the case for Yugoslavia the separatist news that was being produced fanned the flames of jingoism among the diaspora
The Outside World “The idea of ‘atrocity-mongering’, the pejorative description of the use of pictures and stories of cruel and savage acts to mobilize foreign opinion, only emerged in the 1890s as a response to new journalism”
The Outside World On the one hand, journalism is seen to be a watchdog, alerting alarming and mobilizing response. On the other, it is seen as ignoring or misrepresenting the seriousness or relevance of events.
The Outside World • “[Bosnia] a problem from hell, like one of those beasts down there, one of those great messes” • - Warren Christopher Secretary of State 1993
The Rise and Fall of Ethnicity • Before WW2 notions of ‘essential national characteristics” were widely accepted • The second World War changed these conventions
The Outside World • Lack of ability to explain wars in ways that do not involve complicated political calculations • The Humanitarian Aid Policy • Does little to Address the aggressors • Still Relevant Today? [Book Written in 1999]
The Rise and Fall of Ethnicity • If the Germans were portrayed as congenitally evil, it was argued, they could hardly be held responsible for what they did. • By the end of the second world war, ethnicity had become seen as an unacceptable reference for explaining social and historical developments.
The Rise and Fall of Ethnicity • New Paradigm for the Origin of war: Wars were ‘explained’ by the action— occasionally disguised —political interests of the “great powers” • Collapse of the Soviet Union ushered the return of “ethnic conflict” • “Misery and Carnage leveraged by media to justify foreign involvement in ‘ethnic’ disputes.
Misery and Action • Disasters can be framed as failures of policy • Agencies find it easier to fundraise for victims of disaster rather than victims of policy • 1947 Bengal Famine
Media and Action Advocating for the type of long term commitment it would take to avert disaster is hardly possible in the modern news making climate.
Media and Action Some have argued that the extreme focus on charity causes possibilities of real long term development to be ignored.
Media and Action • Some say the role of media is to make it too expensive in political terms to do nothing • The ‘cost’ of doing nothing is hard to quantify
“How should journalists report what they see when public pressure to act is generated by television images of human suffering but when there is no clear – or vital - national interest at stake?”
Gangsters and Winners • Media focus on ‘ethnic conflict’ ignores the brutal tactics of war profiteers • Media reports on government leaders and action groups, ignoring the obscure gun runners and aid interceptors who make a fortune of the continuing conflict.
Gangsters and Winners Refusal to discuss the potential rationality of certain groups to proliferate war leads to ‘ethnic conflict’ being to only rationale left to explain what seems irrational. [OPERATION CYCLONE]
The News Industries and the New World Order • Journalists can report only what they can broadcast. • In war Truth is “The First Casualty” • Contemporary journalists malign the increasing pace in the industrialization of the news. • There is more news in the world, but it is produced by less specialized more general reporters. They know less they cost less
“More means worse…the multiplicity of deadlines takes us away from the real world and drives us back into our offices and edit suites. – Bell 1995
The News Industries and the New World Order • Editors serve “departments of preconceived notions” • Stories contrary the standing narrative are discouraged • Stories of the murder of hapless Serbs were too “emotionally confusing” to be good for the public”
The News Industries and the New World Order • Groups now know how to exploit their own suffering to manipulate the media • Images of suffering can be used as pawns in nationalist conflicts
The News Industries and the New World Order • Editors use ‘ethnicity’ ‘tribalism’ and ‘history’ to explain away contemporary conflicts. • South Sudan • It is not the differences between these groups that cause the wars, these differences are leveraged to captures control of resources.
Media watchdogs dying? • Journalists say their work is having less effect while politicians argue it is having a greater than ever effect.
Media watchdogs dying? “Where there is a policy vacuum and when pictures have a sudden, jolting impact on the public, then suddenly and radically policy can change.”
Media watchdogs dying? • Structural nature of broadcasts impedes striking photography [BBC Guidelines] • We regard famine and natural disasters as having causes, while ‘ethnic’ conflicts are unavoidable
Conclusion We cannot hide behind the mask of humanitarian aid and neutral peacekeeping to stem the tide of ‘inevitable ethnic conflict.’ It is a gross simplification of a complicated issue that modern media establishments cannot or will not spend the time and resources to explain fully.
