A. The media. Today that media includes the blogosphere!
The question that comes to mind is how good is the knowledge and understanding that people get from the media. The following posting looks at Iraq, and the quality of the information people get about Iraq. But I think it is clear that people come to very different conclusions about Iraq depending on their fundamental political positions and the media that they chose. Thus a survey prior to the 2004 presidential election found:
72 percent of Bush supporters believed Iraq had WMDs or a program to develop them;
26 percent of Kerry supporters shared these views.
56 percent of Bush supporters believed that experts agreed that Iraq had WMDs before the war;
18 percent of Kerry supporters shared this view.
75 percent of Bush supporters believed Iraq was directly involved in 9/11 or gave Al Qaeda support;
30 percent of Kerry supporters shared these views.
26 percent of Bush supporters believed the majority of the world supported the war in Iraq, while 31 percent believed the majority opposed the war;
the figures for Kerry supporters were 5 percent and 76 percent respectively.
In the analysis, the authors ask, “why are Bush supporters holding so clinging so tightly to beliefs that have been so visibly refuted?.....one key possible explanation for why Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq had WMD or a major WMD program, and supported al Qaeda is that they continue to hear the Bush administration confirming these beliefs.”
I would suggest that the differences may also stem from the specific media to which different portions of the public attend. I worry that the gap in knowledge and understanding of the situation in Iraq between the Arab peoples, the American public, and indeed the public in other nations may continue to widen, given the different coverage in their media.
I would suggest that people expose themselves to different sources of information, and fortunately, it is now possible to do so easily via the Internet. I would also suggest that people seek out sources that study the media and its role in public policy. Some suggestions are provided below:
Two articles appeared recently on military blogging about Iraq (the better one from the current Wired magazine). There was a complementary article about Iraqi blogs. One thing that I found interesting was the difference views of the war that they provided, and the difference in those views from that of the mainstream media.
"The Blogs of War"
"Soldiers' Blogs Bring Iraq Home: On Internet Blogs, Soldiers in Iraq Offer Up Inside Story on the War"
"Iraqi Bloggers Describe Life Lived Amid Long Turmoil"
Three articles appeared in the Washington Post recently on terrorism on the web. On the one hand, they illustrate the negative potential of the technology. On the other hand, they illustrate the view of influential media in the US on the issue.
"The Web as Weapon: Zarqawi Intertwines Acts on Ground in Iraq With Propaganda Campaign on the Internet"
"e-Qaeda: The Rise of a Radical Webmaster" Briton Used Internet As His Bully Pulpit"
"Terrorists Turn to the Web as Base of Operations"
The Reporters Without Borders Iraq War website seems worthy of attention.
I have thought the difference between the coverage by Al Jazeera versus Fox news is worth exploring. The viewers of the two clearly are looking at different wars! I wonder if the differences in coverage of Iraq in these media are resulting in (irreconcilable) differences in the views of the different audiences. Some centers that might shed light on the topic are:
The Center for Media and Public Affairs
News Hounds
The Stanhope Center’s Middle East Media Research Project
The Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy
MediaChannel
Blogs
My favorite non-traditional source for information on Iraq is Juan Cole’s blog:
Informed Comment
Salam Pax had the most famous blog -- "Where is Read" -- but is no longer posting to it. You can find links to it, and two others here:
I think Pax went to work for the Guardian, and was interviewed on British TV, but seems to be back in Iraq now.
Some other Iraqi Blogs:
Baghdad Burning (Riverbend)
My son likes Riverbend's blog, saying she's very passionate, very much on the ground level. And Riverbend has a book.
Raed in the Middle
This is not the Raed of “Where is Raed”. But this is the brother of Khalid (see next entry)
Tell Me a Secret
The blogger, Khalid, has a posting on his experience being arrested and interrogated this summer.
Iraq the Model
My son notes: “I've been reading through the archives, and I'm kind of struck by the strangeness of it - the author is very current in his coverage, but he also seems to be an unabashedly pro-invasion Iraqi; his links are right-wing, and . . . well, for one thing, he has a long and clearly heart-felt passage asking Cindy Sheehan to understand that this is all a good cause. It's certainly not *illegitimate* because of that, but I don't know how representative it is, either.”
Other Websites of Interest
I found this interesting:
2003 Invasion Of Iraq Media Coverage
The following seems quite good for the K-12 school level:
Critical Media Literacy in Times of War
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