Media And The Narrativization Of War
By
Subarno Chattarji
Department of English,
University of Delhi
Mass
media and television in particular have altered the ways in which we look at
our world and the ways in which politics, wars, and history are projected and
reconstructed. The media presents seemingly ¿objective¿ narratives of
war.
This
is the way it is proclaim the slightly breathless correspondents out in the
field. ¿It¿s a minute by minute existence¿ says Nic Robertson, CNN
correspondent in Kandahar. The anchors at home intone and repeat the idea that
these reporters are conveying the immediacy of war. The warfront is brought
home to millions of viewers snugly ensconced in the global village. From
Vietnam to Afghanistan the media has grown in sophistication and influence. By
¿the media¿ I refer primarily to US television channels and the BBC since their
truth-value and outreach is greater than say Doordarshan or STAR NEWS. I will
concentrate on the language of war as well as the ways in which the media
determines the parameters of the debate regards a given conflict.
The
Vietnam War was televised primarily for an American audience. It was the Gulf
War that introduced war to a global television audience and made CNN and its
reporter, Peter Arnett famous. Arnett¿s line, ¿the skies are illuminated over
Baghdad¿, projected war as spectacle, the transformation of death and
destruction into a laser show, computer game, or film. There was no mention on
CNN (or any other news channel) of incinerated Iraqi soldiers who were
retreating and bombed during the retreat. Photographs of the infamous ¿highway
of death¿ surfaced later in selected print media. The increasing
technologization of war allows for pride in the mechanics of destruction, which
obscures the primary site of war, the human body. TV wars accompanied by
military experts pontificating on the virtues of a Stealth Bomber or a cluster
bomb, further anaestheticize the horror of war. There are only passing references
now to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children who have died or are
malnourished due to UN sanctions imposed at the insistence of the US and
Britain.
The
media coverage of the present crisis is subtler in terms of presenting a
seeming plurality of voices. For instance, there are reports on the
humanitarian crisis and conditions in refugee camps (although not on the extent
or their direct relation to the US bombing). What are excluded are the hundreds
of dead civilians from this and other related conflicts. There are no televised
candlelit vigils or services for the Palestinian dead, for example. The
¿worthy-unworthy victim¿ dichotomy is neatly sustained even in the midst of
media pluralities.
My analysis of these narratives and representations will perforce be impressionistic and tentative since the crisis is still unfolding before us. Also at this point I want to highlight an obvious fact about the September 11 attacks. Nothing can mitigate the evil of the premeditated actions or the loss of innocent lives and trauma of survivors on that day. It was an act of absolute terror and just as innocent Iraqi children or Afghans ought not to suffer for the sins of their leaders, so too American citizens cannot be held responsible for all acts of US foreign policy. There can be no doubt, as Robert Fisk, John Pilger, and Martin Amis, among others have pointed out, that US policy in Palestine, Iraq, and the Middle East has been reprehensible and overtly biased toward Israel. This policy might explain the hatred that sections of the Islamic world feel toward the US, but it does not justify acts of terror against civilians. A State Department official stated in an American studies conference in September that it made his blood boil to hear people make connections between US policy vis-à-vis Palestine and September 11. My position is not so extreme or dehistoricized, but I do believe that in the process of presenting a critique of the media coverage of the conflict we need to keep in mind the utter desolation of the human tragedy visited on New York and Washington.