| Description: | This course analyses the role played by the media in the evolution of national and international wars. We will investigate the extent to which the media influence decision-making about military interventions or if, rather, they are tools in the hands of government officials seeking to influence public opinion. A number of media-related phenomena will be investigated including the CNN effect, agenda setting, real time policy, media diplomacy, media war, news management and propaganda. The evolution of the role of the media will be assessed in a number of recent conflicts such as those in Vietnam, the Falklands, Panama, Iraq, Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and the Sudan. Several different topics will be explained to understand the intersection between war and media: the proliferation of satellite technologies and the internet; the importance of the international TV networks (like CNN and al Jazeera); the role of still and moving images; the importance of journalists and journalistic routines; the relevance of press conferences, briefings, and official statements; the representation of war in movies and artists' works; the media gap between "North" and "South"; the emergence of "non-Western" media; and also the spread of ethnic conflicts and terrorism, and the more and more asymmetric nature of war. |