a) Journalism is an expression of the culture in which it resides.
b) The decline of the foreign correspondent.
c) Does the West continue to dominate global news flow?
d) Asian values in journalism and its impact across the Asia-Pacific region.
e) The challenges for African journalism in the 21st century.
f) Compare and contrast development journalism in Asia and Africa.
g) The Pacific journalist – tradition versus freedom of expression.
h) The challenges for investigative journalism in Eastern Europe.
i) The clash of civilisation and its influence on US journalism.
j) The framing of Africa by western journalists.
k) Freedom of expression vs democracy in Latin America.
l) The decline of US newspapers and what it means for democracy.
m) Is peace journalism possible?
n) OR a statement you design based on your studies which has received prior approval from your tutor at least TWO weeks before due date.
Your assignment will be assessed according to the criteria sheet at the end of the Subject Outline. You are encouraged to self-assess your work by submitting a copy of this assessment criteria sheet with your assignment.
Length: 1500 words
Due: Friday of Week 14
REFERENCING GUIDE
School of Humanities,
Languages and Social Science
Griffith University
School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science Referencing Guide 1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS ………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 1
Please report any errors, typographical or otherwise, to S.Lovell@griffith.edu.au
mailto:S.Lovell@griffith.edu.au
School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science Referencing Guide 2
1. INTRODUCTION
The Harvard system, also known as the author/date system, is not based on a
singular source document. This guide, like most Australian university Harvard
referencing guides, is based on Commonwealth of Australia 2002, Style Manual:
for authors, editors and printers, 6th edn, rev. Snooks & Co, John Wiley & Sons,
Australia, Milton, with additional material and updates reflecting best practice in
the tertiary sector.
The Harvard system has two components:
a) In-text citations (also known as short references and in-text references)
In-text citations list the author, year of publication and page number in
brackets at the relevant place, usually the end of a sentence, phrase or clause
or immediately after a quotation. They act as a form of shorthand so that
readers can turn to the bibliography or references and check for full details if
they wish to pursue an idea
.
b) List of References: Bibliography or Works Cited
These are not the same thing although they share some common features:
Both are placed at the end of the
paper.
Both are organised alphabetically by author’s family name, or by authoring
body.
Both are punctuated in the same way.
Both, at undergraduate level, combine all sources in one list without
separating them by genre (e.g. books, journals, web sources).
A Works Cited List provides full bibliographic details for all sources referred to in
your assignment so that readers can easily locate them. Each different source
referenced with an in-text citation in your essay must have a corresponding entry in
your Reference List. A Reference List only includes those sources for which you have
provided an in-text
citation.
A Bibliography lists everything you may have consulted in your research,
including sources which you haven’t referenced in the text. A Bibliography is
not needed unless specifically requested by your lecturer.
Note:
You use a Bibliography if you wish to include other relevant works from
which you have developed your paper but which have remained uncited. Only
include items that you have consulted at some point in your research. As an
undergraduate in the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science, if
you use a Bibliography you DO NOT need to also include a Works Cited List.
This is included in your Bibliography.
Check with your lecturer to understand what is required for each assignment.
DO NOT provide a Bibliography if an assignment asks for a Works Cited List.
School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science Referencing Guide 3
Rules for Referencing
All referencing follows very simple rules based on common sense questions. In
their simplest form, these are:
Who wrote it?
When was it published?
What is it called? Or, in which journal did it appear?
Who published it? Or, in which volume and issue number of the journal?
Where was it published? Or on which specific pages of the journal?
Sometimes, other information is included that fits ‘around’ these items, as you’ll
see. (e.g. translators, editors, compilers). In all cases though, in order to adequately
meet your obligations in relation to referencing, you need to study and take notes in
a way that ensures that you collect these details when you access the source. Make
this a habit. Write these details in one colour and write any direct quotations from
your sources in a different colour in order to consistently distinguish your own
words from the words of others. In this way you avoid accidental plagiarism due to
poor note-taking. These details will be used for your in-text citations and reference
list. See examples on pages 4-5.
A list of items in the following sequence should be noted at the time you
access the source. This would include any (but not necessarily all) of the following:
Author/s listed in the order they
appear on the title page.
Year of publication, using n.d. if no date or c. for circa if date is
approximate, ‘forthcoming’ if about to be published, or ‘in press’ if in the
process of publication.
Title of publication from title page (not spine, dustjacket or library
catalogue) italicised with minimum capitalisation (first word of title only +
proper nouns). Anything normally italicised within the title can be indicated
with inverted commas or plain text. Foreign titles should be retained but
followed by a translation in plain text in brackets.
Title of series separated by a comma and written in plain text.
Description if any details above are unclear e.g. a catalogue number, series
number or note such as Report to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Commission.
Edition number, using abbreviation edn include any other description of
edition e.g. student edn, Australian edn, rev edn, enlarged edn.
Additional ‘authors’ if such exist e.g. editor/s (ed. eds), compiler (comp.
comps), reviser (rev. revs), translator (tran. trans), or illustrator (ill. ills). If
these people are more important than those by whom the collected material
is created, then the work is listed under the editor or other responsible
person.
Volume number and its title if different to others in the multi volume
work.
List only the volume used by number (vol. 2 & 3), or if the whole work then
state how many volumes (12 vols).
Publisher or publishers if more than one.
Place of publication – only include the first place listed with further
School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science Referencing Guide 4
identification if the same as another place (e.g. Cambridge, UK, or
Cambridge, Mass.) or if it’s an obscure place (Maleny, Queensland). If no
place of publication is obvious put n. p. (no place). This item can be omitted
if it is obvious from the publisher’s name (e.g. Melbourne University Press).
Page numbers for your in-text references except for journals where page
numbers of the whole article are needed for bibliography.
For web pages you need to answer very similar questions:
Who wrote it? (Person or organisation).
When was it made public? This is the year the site was formed or revised.
The title of the piece if it has one or the site if it does not.
Who published it? Name and place of the sponsor/s of the site.
URL of the document or, if it does not have one, the site
URL.
Date you accessed it.
For audio visual (including radio) programs you need to note:
Title
Year of recording, production or transmission
Format (e.g. radio program, video)
Publisher
Place of recording
Description
Date (day and month) of transmission
Any other important information would come after the full reference e.g.
producers, directors, speakers
etc.
Examples
Books:
Bly, Robert 1990, All about men, Routledge, New York.
Last name of
author.
The book title
written in Italics.
L a s t n a m e o f a u t h o r ,
f i r s t n a m e o f a u t h o r
The date the book was
published.
The city the book was
published in .
The Publisher.
The first name
of the author.
School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science Referencing Guide 5
Journal Articles:
Franklin, Teresa 1968, ‘New ways to share an intimate evening’, Journal of Leisure
and
Sexuality, vol. 39, no.10, pp.
63-82.
Web pages:
Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art n.d., Homepage, Queensland Government,
Brisbane, viewed 7 August 2014,
Note:
These examples have been centred on the page to allow for explanation but in a
reference list, entries would be aligned left.
When presenting your Bibliography or Reference List remember:
Presentation matters.
Follow exactly the punctuation, use of upper and lower case, italics
or plain text, use or absence of inverted commas, indentations, use
of dashes and abbreviations that appear in the following tables. A
list of common abbreviations and their full meaning can be found
at the end of this guide.
Last name of
author.
The first name
of the author.
The date the issue was
published.
L a s t n a m e o f a u t h o r ,
f i r s t n a m e o f a u t h o r
The title of the journal
article in single quotation
marks.
The name of the
journal written in
Italics.
Volume
number.
The pages of the
journal that the
article appears on.
Issue number.
Name of author or
organisation that
produced the
webpage.
Date the webpage was
formed or updated or if
unavailable n.d. for no
date.
Title of the webpage or if
none, title
of the website.
Sponsor/publisher
of the
website.
Date you viewed
the webpage.
The full webpage/website
address.
City of the sponsor/publisher
of the website.
School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science Referencing Guide 6
Note:
In the following guide some entries are fictitious and others are real. No quotations
attributed to the sources are real.
7
2. TABLES
TABLE ONE: BOOKS & PRINT BASED ELECTRONIC MATERIALS
Source Type In-Text Citation Format List of References Format Note This Feature
1. Book.
No author.
It was meaningless rubbish and
‘every politician worth his salt
knew’ (Franklin Dam issues
2000, p. 16).
OR
The most recent edition of
Franklin Dam issues (2000, p.
16) claims ‘every politician
worth his salt’ knew nothing
was being done.
This guide was prepared for
Griffith university students
using the standard text for
Harvard referencing in
Australian publishing (Style
manual for authors, editors and
printers
2002).
Franklin Dam issues 2000, Greenpeace Publications,
Hobart.
Style manual: for authors, editors and printers, 6th edn,
2002, rev. Snooks & Co., John Wiley & Sons,
Milton, Qld.
When there is no author, the
title of the book takes that
position.
It is optional to use a hanging
indent for entries in the
Bibliography/Reference List to
highlight alphabetical order,
however, it must be used
consistently for all entries.
As a proper noun Franklin Dam
is capitalised.
Font should be the same as the
text but 2 points smaller for the
Bibliography/
Reference List.
Italics and minimal
capitalisation in book titles.
8
Source Type In-Text Citation Format List of References Format Note This Feature
2. Book.
Single author.
The current issue for
masculinity ‘is its unpopular
image’ (Bly 1990, p. 72).
OR
Robert Bly (1990, p. 72) argues
that the ‘unpopular image’ of
masculinity is an ongoing issue
for young men.
Bly, Robert 1990, All about men, Routledge, New York. Italics and minimal
capitalisation in book titles.
A comma separates all
bibliographic elements after the
year.
Note: no comma between
author’s name and the year.
A full stop ends the Reference
List entry.
3. Book.
Two or three
authors.
Most undergraduates know
‘much more than they imagine’
about straightforward
referencing (Beasty, Tingle &
Poppin 2007, p. 5).
According to Beasty, Tingle and
Poppin (2007, p. 5) most
undergraduates know ‘much
more than they imagine’ about
referencing.
Beasty, Frank, Tingle, Mary & Poppin, Paul 2007,
Understanding referencing at undergraduate level,
Random House,
London.
The ampersand (&) in the in-
text citation is replaced by the
word ‘and’ when it appears in
the written text, but the
ampersand is again used in the
Reference List.
Names appear in order they
appear on the title page.
9
Source Type In-Text Citation Format List of References Format Note This Feature
4. Book.
Four or more
authors.
Ornithologists are concerned
about ‘the increasingly severe
results of global warming on
migratory patterns in some
nomadic birds’ (Swan et al.
2006, p. 95).
OR
Swan et al. (2006, p. 95) claim
‘the increasingly severe results
of global warming’ are already
detrimental to some birds.
Swan, Ben, Franks, Jill, Marvin, Eddie, Lanks, Pat &
Somers, David 2006, Global warming and birds in the
wild, Faber & Faber, New York.
Foreign phrases that are not
common English usage, e.g. et
al. should be italicised. Select a
reputable dictionary to
determine whether common
usage applies. Italics in the
dictionary dictate the format of
your work. Use the same
dictionary throughout the paper.
All names, separated by a
comma with the exception of an
ampersand between the last two,
appear in the Reference List.
5. Book.
Very long name
of authoring
body rather than
a person.
For insulin resistant patients, a
healthy diet is high in protein
(CSIRO 2007, p.16).
Vegetarians should research the
many alternative sources of
plant-based protein available
(Vegetarians united 2007, p.6).
CSIRO See Commonwealth Science and Industry
Research Office.
Vegetarians united See European, Asian and
Australasian vegetarians united.
European, Asian and Australasian vegetarians united
Australian Surveying and Land Information Group 2001,
Tallangatta, Victoria and New South Wales topographic map,
1:250 000. 55-3, 2
nd
edn., Australian Surveying and Land
Information Group,
Canberra.
Environmental map of Australia 2000, map, 1: 5,000,000,
Earth Systems, Melbourne.
(Information drawn from: DLS, Charles Sturt University – see
bibliography).
Publisher may be same as
author.
Sheet title, if there is one, in
italics.
Scale must be included.
Edition is very important in
maps.
22
TABLE FOUR: UNPUBLISHED MATERIALS
Source Type In-Text Citation Format List of References Format Note This Feature
1. Unpublished thesis.
The ideological implications of
the current multinational and
globalised post-capitalist
investments in fully stocked
underground bunkers are
driven by neo-conservative
recognitions that nuclear
energy is on its way
(Frankfurter 2001, p. 45).
Frankfurter, Michelle 2001 ‘Fear and its ideological
underpinnings’, PhD thesis, Griffith University,
Brisbane.
Type of thesis must be mentioned.
University at which it was
undertaken replaces publisher.
Place is still required unless
inferred.
No italics anywhere.
2. Unpublished report
presented at a
conference or
meeting.
The Treasurer reported that the
annual income for that year
grew significantly compared to
the previous two years
(‘Treasurer’s annual report’
1982, p. 2).
‘Treasurer’s annual report’ 1982, presented to the
fifteenth annual meeting of the Nerang Youth &
Citizens Police Club, Nerang, 19 July.
If held privately or by author:
‘Treasurer’s annual report’ 1982, presented to the
fifteenth annual meeting of the Nerang Youth &
Citizens Police Club, Nerang, 19 July. In possession
of Mr Frank Newfingle, Nerang (Gold Coast).
No italics anywhere.
Entry ends with a full stop before
place of lodgement is noted.
3. Archival material. The Treasurer reported that the
annual income for that year
grew significantly compared to
the previous two years
(‘Treasurer’s annual report’
1982, p. 2).
‘Treasurer’s annual report’ 1982, presented to the
fifteenth annual meeting of the Nerang Youth &
Citizens Police Club, Nerang, 19 July. File CM 458.
In possession of Gold Coast City Library, Local
History Division, Gold Coast.
If there is a file number available,
position it after the details of the
reference but before the details of
the place location.
23
Source Type In-Text Citation Format List of References Format Note This Feature
4. GU study guide. The incidence of young people who
binge drink is of great concern to
sociologists (1105LHS 2007, p.
24).
1105LHS Youth & Society Study Guide 2007,
Griffith University, Brisbane.
The course code in plain text is
required
in the in-text citation.
The full name and code is
required in the bibliography.
Check front pages of the Guide
for year it was revised as the year
of publication. If unavailable, use
the year in which you are doing
the course.
5. GU dossier of
readings.
When full details of
a reading are
available from the
dossier contents.
The Russians very quickly decided
‘the Americans could not be
permitted to control outer space’
and initiated their own space
program (Minsky 2001, p. 6).
Australian literature was at its peak
in the seventies (Rathdown 1999, p.
65).
Minsky, Godfrey 2001, Initiating a Russian space
program, Routledge, New York.
Rathdown, Susie 1999, ‘Understanding new
radicalism in Australian literature’, Journal of
Australian Books and History, vol. 45, no. 3, pp.
65-90.
Treat the article in the same way
as you would if you found it in
its original format in a book or a
journal or any other source
according to the direction in this
Guide.
24
Source Type In-Text Citation Format List of References Format Note This Feature
6. GU dossier of
readings.
When full details of
a reading are NOT
available from the
dossier contents.
The trouble was that the depression
dramatically slowed ‘home grown
manufacturing and export’
(Delaney, R2 in 1109LHS Dossier
2008, p. 16).
Delaney, Matthew 1941, ‘Finding a way forward’,
Reading Two, 1109LHS Depression Studies,
Dossier of Readings, Griffith University,
Brisbane, semester 1, 2008.
As far as possible put all the
details of the reading that would
locate it in its original source.
Where they are not available,
write ‘not available’ in place they
would normally appear.
In addition, add dossier details.
7. Interviews.
Where the author has
undertaken
interviews as part of
the research.
Barry Tipsy, 39, told me
alcoholism was part of the
Australian culture (2015, pers.
comm., 24 April).
When interviewed on the 24 April
2015, Barry Tipsy said
‘Alcoholism? It’s just part of being
an Aussie’ (See Appendix A).
Treat interviews as
personal
communications. No reference
required in the reference list.
You may wish to provide a
transcript for interviews
performed as part of the research.
This should be included in an
appendix after the reference list.
25
TABLE FIVE: GOVERNMENT PUBLICATIONS
(Examples drawn directly from: Commonwealth of Australia 2002, pp.220-222; Division of Library Services, 2003, pp. 19 & 54)
Problems often occur in the citing of government publications. Common challenges to which to be alert include:
No apparent author
Often a specific consultant is employed, or a particular committee formed to work temporarily with a sponsoring agency
It may be sponsored and written by the same agency (so they are effectively both author and publisher)
May be the work of a committee set up for that single task.
May be a parliamentary publication (e.g. Hansard, Parliamentary Papers, Journals of the Senate, House of Representatives Votes and
Proceedings)
Source Type In-Text Citation Format List of References Format Note This Feature
1. Title page without an
author.
The government has had a clear
policy of mainstreaming that has
effectively established half way
houses (Disability Services
Queensland 2000).
Disability Services Queensland 2000, Securing a
forward looking dimension in mainstreaming
disability, Disability Services Queensland,
Brisbane.
Sponsoring agency listed as
author. Maximal capitalisation.
Sponsoring agency is usually also
the ‘publisher’.
Title italicised, minimal
capitalisation.
2. Title page with author
and sponsoring body.
New anti-terrorism measures are
in place to protect Australian
citizens (Australian Federal
Police 2007).
The Australian Federal Police
(2007) defend their claim…
Australian Federal Police 2007, Analysis of
effectiveness of anti-terrorist measures
introduced and deployed in 2006, report prepared
by John Smith, Australian Federal Police,
Canberra.
STILL place the sponsoring
agency in the
author position.
Acknowledge individual writer after
the title.
In-text citation has sponsoring body.
26
Source Type In-Text Citation Format List of References Format Note This Feature
3. Title page names
temporary consultant.
Dabrowski’s latest report (1999)
made is obvious that…
Dabrowski, William 1999, Caring for country,
report to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Commission, Canberra.
Temporary consultant appears in
author position.
4. Title page names
temporary committee.
‘Care for country should be
encouraged alongside modern
methods’ (Traditional Methods
Committee 1999, p.3).
Traditional Methods Committee 1999, ‘Burning
for regeneration’, report to the Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander Commission, Canberra.
Committee appears in author
position.
A temporary committee is convened
with a specific task and dismantled
once it is complete.
5. Written by a Branch or
Division permanently
within an agency which
is the publishing body.
Producing an alternative and
sustainable form of fuel is a
challenge currently being taken
up by government bodies
(Department of Conservation
2004).
Department of Conservation 2004, Hydrogen
powered cars: Progress to date, Sustainable
Energy Branch, Department of Conservation,
Darwin.
STILL place the sponsoring
agency in the author position.
Acknowledge the Branch or
Division after the title.
In-text citation has sponsoring body.
27
Source Type In-Text Citation Format List of References Format Note This Feature
6. Publishing body and
sponsoring agency are
different.
The current Australian flag
should never be considered the
only way of presenting the
national flag, nor should the
State flags be minimised in
importance (DAS 1995).
The Department of
Administrative Services (1995)
had…
Department of Administrative Services (Awards
and National Symbols Branch) 1995, Australian
flags, Australian Government Publishing Service,
Canberra.
Acknowledge position of Branch or
Division. Details CHANGE when
the publishing agent is not the same
as the sponsoring body in position
of author.
Abbreviate long title in author
position for the in-text citation;
insert abbreviation in the
bibliography with a cross reference
to full name in its alphabetical
position.
No need to mention the Branch or
Division in the in-text citation.
7. Parliamentary Papers. The 1999-2000 annual report of
the Department of Finance and
Administration (Australia,
Parliament 2000a)
demonstrates…
The report has become
something of a hot potato for
use of the phrase ‘Collateral
spending’ (The Bent Report
2000b, p. 6).
Australia, Parliament 2000a, Department of
Finance and Administration annual report 1999-
2000, Parl. Paper 32, Canberra.
Australia, Parliament 2000b, Parliamentary
spending: Report of the Public Accounts
Committee, (L Bent, chairperson), Parl. Paper
142, Canberra.
The Bent Report See Australia, Parliament
2000b.
Title in italics and minimal
capitalisation (proper nouns
maximal, however).
Use of 2000a, 2000b format to
distinguish items published in the
same year.
Even where a report is well known
by the name of the person
presenting it, and can therefore be
cited by that name in-text, the report
must be placed in the bibliography
with the sponsoring agency as the
author.
28
Source Type In-Text Citation Format List of References Format Note This Feature
8. Hansard. Commonwealth of Australia
(2014, p. 13755) records the first
and second readings of the
Corporations Amendment
(Further Future of Financial
Advice Measures) Bill 2014.
Commonwealth of Australia,
House of
Representatives 2014, Parliamentary debates, vol.
24, pp. 13742-13891.
Australia, Senate 2000, Debates, vol. S25, p. 65.
Hansard is the name given to
Australian parliamentary
proceedings.
Page numbers accessed appear in the
Referencing List.
Volume numbers replace use of
2000a and 2000b.
9. Journals of the Senate
and, Votes and
Proceedings of the
House of
Representatives.
Australia, Senate 2000-2001, Journals, no. 123, p.
178.
Australia, House of Representatives 2000-2001,
Votes and Proceedings, vol. 1, p. 631.
Volume and issue numbers replace
use of 2000a and 2000b.
29
Source Type In-Text Citation Format List of References Format Note This Feature
10. Australian
Bureau of
Statistics.
Unemployment is at its lowest for
five years (ABS 2000) but the
Youth Allowance lowers that
figure.
Australian Bureau of Statistics 2001, Australia’s
population 1890-1910, Catalogue no.
3467.2, ABS, Canberra.
Australian Bureau of Statistics 2.005, Queensland
yearbook, Catalogue no. 1301.5, ABS,
Brisbane.
Be sure to insert title, catalogue
number and page if paginated.
Title in italics and minimal
capitalisation.
11. Graphs, images,
figures and tables
reproduced in
full.
Image and/or table is presented in
text as it appears in the original
with the following phrase directly
beneath it as an in-text
citation:
Source: ABS 2001, Australia’s
environment: issues and trends,
4613.0.
Australian Bureau of Statistics 2001, Australia’s
environment: Issues and trends, Catalogue
no. 4613.0, ABS, Canberra.
Cross reference abbreviations from
in-text citation.
Australian Bureau of Statistics is
permitted as an abbreviation within
the full reference on its second
appearance only.
No brackets around substitute for in-
text citation.
12. Compilation of
figures or
percentages
which are the
author’s
interpretation.
Your own tabulated interpretation
of raw statistics is presented in
the text with the following phrase
directly beneath it as an in-text
citation:
Figures compiled using statistics
from: ABS 2005, 1301.5.
Australian Bureau of Statistics 2005, Queensland
yearbook, catalogue no. 1301.5, ABS,
Brisbane.
Australian Bureau of Statistics 2016, Population
statistics by age and sex, Queensland,
catalogue no. 2604.1.55. Retrieved 26
January 2016, from
As above.
If using sources called ABS or
AusStats, only available
electronically, include URL and
date retrieved/viewed following
reference.
30
TABLE SIX: WORLD WIDE WEB AND ELECTRONIC ONLY SOURCES
Source Type In-Text Citation Format List of References Format Note This Feature
1. Website.
Homepage of
organisation
or person.
If you need to know details of
the QAG program, begin at
their homepage
(http://www.qag.qld.gov.au/).
OR
If you need to know details of
the QAG program, begin at
their homepage (QAG/GoMA
Homepage).
QAG/GoMA See Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art.
Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art n.d., Homepage,
Queensland Government, Brisbane, viewed 7 August 2014,
Author (person responsible
for the site) may be a person
OR organisation.
Date established OR last
revised. If no date, use n.d.
No italics. URL is between
<…>.
Web address may be given
in the in-text citation.
OR
School usage, which
remains acceptable, has
been to use an abbreviated
term cross-referenced in the
bibliography if needed.
2. A document
within a
website.
McQueen is a central figure
in early twentieth century
Queensland art (Making it
modern 2007).
Making it modern: The watercolours of Kenneth Macqueen 2007,
description of exhibition sponsored by Leighton Contractors.
FAREWELL TO JOURNALISM?
Time for a rethinking
Robert W. McChesney
Journalism is in freefall collapse in the United States, and, to varying degrees,
elsewhere. Unless there is a dramatic rethinking in the United States, and to a lesser extent
elsewhere, all signs point to a continued deterioration of journalism. By all known political
theory this means the continuation of credible democratic governance will be impossible.
Hence this is a crisis of the greatest possible magnitude.
There is considerable consensus in democratic theory and among journalism
scholars (see Christians et al., 2009) about what a healthy journalism should entail:
1. It must provide a rigorous account of people who are in power and people who wish to
be in power, in the government, corporate and nonprofit sectors.
2. It must regard the information needs of all people as legitimate. If anything, it should
favor those without property, as those with wealth invariably have the means to get the
information they need to run society.
3. It must have a plausible method to separate truth from lies, or at least to prevent liars from
being unaccountable and leading nations into catastrophes*particularly wars, economic
crises and communal discord.
4. It must produce a wide range of informed opinions on the most important issues of
our times*not only the transitory concerns of the moment, but also challenges that
loom on the horizon. These issues cannot be determined primarily by what people in
power are talking about. Journalism must provide the nation’s early warning system,
so problems can be anticipated, studied, debated and addressed before they grow to crisis
proportions.
It is not necessarily the case that every media outlet can or should provide all
these services to their communities; that would be impractical. It is necessary, however,
that the media system as a whole makes such journalism a realistic expectation for the
citizenry. There should be a basic understanding of the commons*the social world*that
all people share, so that all people can effectively participate in the political and electoral
processes of self-governance. The measure of a free press is how well a system meets
these criteria of giving citizens the information they need to keep their freedom.
There is more. Great journalism, as Ben Bagdikian put it, requires great institutions.
Like any complex undertaking, a division of labor is required to achieve success: copy-
editors, fact checkers, and proofreaders are needed, in addition to reporters and assigning
editors. Great journalism also requires institutional muscle to stand up to governments
and corporate power. It requires competition so if one newsroom misses a story it will be
exposed by someone else. Monopoly is the enemy of journalism, whether commercial,
noncommercial or both. A democratic press requires people covering stories they would
not cover if they were doing journalism on a voluntary basis. In short, to have democratic
journalism requires material resources that have to come from somewhere and need to be
# 2012 Taylor & Francis http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2012.679868
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2012.679868
If I needed to grade the US news media by the above criteria, the best I could do is a
D minus, and that is only because, being a magnanimous soul, I have instituted a generous
curve.
To some extent, the great crisis in journalism today is inherent in a system of private
capitalist control over news media combined with advertising providing the majority of
revenues. As these news media markets invariably tended toward becoming concentrated
and noncompetitive, it afforded the owners tremendous political power, and tended to
marginalize the voices and interests of the poor and working class. By the first two
decades of the twentieth century this became a major crisis for American journalism. The
solution to the problem was the emergence of professional journalism. This embodied the
revolutionary idea that the owner and the editor could be separate, and that the politi-
cal views of the owner (and advertisers) would not be reflected in the nature of the
journalism, except on the editorial page. This was a 180-degree shift from the entire
history of American journalism, which was founded on the notion of an explicitly partisan
and highly competitive press that played an integral role in the political process. This
partisan press remained intact through the nineteenth century only to be undermined by
the increasing concentration and profitability of the
news media.
Under professionalism, news would be determined and produced by trained pro-
fessionals and the news would be objective, nonpartisan, factually accurate and unbi-
ased. Whether there were 10 newspapers in a community or only one or two would be
mostly irrelevant, because trained journalists*like mathematicians addressing an algebra
problem*would all come up with the same news reports. There were no schools of
journalism in the United States (or world, for that matter) in 1900. By the 1920s all the
major journalism schools had been established and by 1923 the American Society of
Newspaper Editors was formed and had established a professional code for editors and
reporters to follow.
It is important to understand that there is nothing inevitable or ‘‘natural’’ about the
type of professional journalism that emerged in the United States in the last century.
The professional news values that came to dominate in this country were contested; the
journalists’ union, the Newspaper Guild, in the 1930s unsuccessfully attempted to have a
nonpartisan journalism that was far more critical of all people in power, and viewed itself
as the agent of people outside of power, to ‘‘afflict the comfortable and comfort the
afflicted,’’ as Dunne’s saying goes. It regarded journalism as a third force independent of
both government and big business, and wanted to prohibit publishers from having any
control over the content of the news. As the leading history of the formation of the Guild
reports: ‘‘The idea that the Guild could rebalance the power struggle between public and
publisher through a new kind of stewardship of freedom of the press became a core tenet
of their mission as an organization’’ (Scott, 2009, chap. 7).
This practice of journalism was anathema to most publishers, who wanted no part of
aggressive reporting on their fellow business owners or the politicians they routinely
worked with and relied upon for their businesses to be successful. They also were never
going to sign away their direct control over the newsroom; editors and reporters had their
autonomy strictly at the owner’s discretion. The resulting professionalism was to the
owners’ liking, for the most part, and more conducive to their commercial and political
needs.
The core problem with professional journalism as it crystallized was that it relied far
too heavily upon official sources (i.e., people in power) as the appropriate agenda setters
FAREWELL TO JOURNALISM? 683
for news and as the ‘‘deciders’’ concerning the range of legitimate debate in our political
culture. There is considerable irony in this development; Walter Lippmann, generally
regarded as the leading advocate of professionalism, argued that the main justification
for professionalism in journalism was that it provide a trained group of independent
nonpartisan reporters who could successfully and rigorously debunk government (and,
implicitly, corporate) spin, not regurgitate it (Lipmann, 2008; Lippman and Merz, 1920).
Another weakness built into professional journalism as it developed in the United
States was that it opened the door to an enormous public-relations industry that was
eager to provide reporters with material on their clients. Press releases and packets came
packaged to meet the requirements of professional journalism, often produced by former
journalists. The point of PR is to get the client’s message in the news so that it looks
legitimate. The best PR is that which is never recognized for what it is. Although reporters
generally understood the dubious nature of PR, and never embraced it, they had to work
with it to get their work done. Publishers tended to love PR because it lowered the costs of
production. The dirty secret of journalism is that a significant percentage of our news
stories, in the 40�50 percent range, even at the most prestigious newspapers in the glory
days of the 1970s, were based upon press releases. Even then, a surprising amount of the
time these press releases were only loosely investigated and edited before publication.1
It meant that powerful interests could subtly determine what was covered in the news and
how it was covered.
The high-water mark for professional journalism was the1960s and early 1970s. Since
the late 1970s, commercial pressure has eroded much of the autonomy that professional
journalism afforded journalism, and that had provided the basis for the best work done
over the past 50 years. It has led to a softening of standards such that stories about sex
scandals and celebrities have become more legitimate, because they make commercial
sense: they are inexpensive to cover, attract audiences and give the illusion of controversy
without ever threatening anyone in power.
As editorial staffs shrink, there is less ability for news media to interrogate and
counter the claims in press releases. And powerful interests will be better positioned than
ever to produce self-promotional ‘‘information’’*better described as ‘‘propaganda’’*that
can masquerade as ‘‘news.’’ The technology actually makes it easier. A major development
in the past decade has been video news releases, PR-produced news stories that are
often run as if they were legitimate journalism on local TV news broadcasts. The stories
invariably promote the products of the corporation which funds the work surreptitiously
(Farsetta and Price, 2006).
The bottom has come out of the cup of journalism over the past generation, and
has accelerated in the past decade. It is not simply that the quality has deteriorated;
the quantity is in marked decline as well. We are now rapidly approaching a point where
there is nowhere near sufficient journalism for the constitutional system to succeed. In a
nutshell, there is roughly 30 percent less labor and resources going to producing the news
today than there was in 2000, and perhaps half of what there was 25 years ago, on a per
capita basis. The wheels came off corporate journalism in 2007, and subsequently the
number of newspapers and newsrooms has declined sharply. Why do corporations no
longer find journalism a profitable investment? To some extent it is that increasingly
monopolistic news media corporations gutted and trivialized the product for decades and
this ultimately made the ‘‘news’’ irrelevant (O’Shea, 2011). To some extent the crisis
exploded as it did because the Internet destroyed the traditional business model by giving
684 ROBERT W. MCCHESNEY
advertisers far superior ways to reach their prospective consumers. ‘‘The independent
watchdog function that the Founding Fathers envisioned for journalism*going so far
as to call it crucial to a healthy democracy,’’ a 2011 Federal Communications Commission
study on the crisis in journalism concluded, ‘‘is at risk’’ (Waldman and the Working Group
on Information Needs of Communities, 2011, p. 5).
A study that encapsulated the crisis was released by the Pew Center for the People
and the Press in 2010. It examined in exhaustive detail the ‘‘media ecology’’ of the city of
Baltimore for one week in 2009.2 The object was to determine how, in this changing media
moment, ‘‘original’’ news stories were being generated, and by whom. They tracked old
media and new, newspapers, radio, television, websites, blogs, even Twitter ‘‘tweets’’ from
the police department. What did they find? The first conclusion from the researchers was
an unsettling one: despite the seeming proliferation of media, the researchers observed
that ‘‘much of the ‘news’ people receive contains no original reporting. Fully eight out of
ten stories studied simply repeated or repackaged previously published information.’’ And
where did the ‘original’ reporting come from? More than 95 percent of original news
stories were still generated by old media, particularly the Baltimore Sun newspaper. In
other words, a great many of the much-heralded online sites*even some that proudly
labeled themselves as ‘‘news’’ operations*simply disseminated what was being produced
by traditional old media.
It gets worse: the Sun’s production of original news stories was itself down more
than 30 percent from 10 years ago and down a whopping 73 percent from 20 years ago.
The bottom line is this: old media outlets are downsizing and abandoning journalism and
new media are not even beginning to fill the void.
This has had devastating implications for political journalism. The numbers of
foreign correspondents, foreign bureaus, Washington, DC bureaus and correspondents,
statehouse bureaus and correspondents, right on down to the local city hall, have all been
slashed to the bone, and in some cases the coverage barely exists any longer (Waldman
and the Working Group on Information Needs of Communities, 2011, pp. 44�5). In an era
of ever-greater corruption the watchdog is no longer on the beat. It was striking that the
biggest political scandals in Washington in the past decade*the ones that brought down
Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay and Randy ‘‘Duke’’ Cunningham*were all started by a daily
newspaper reporter’s investigation. Those paid reporting positions no longer exist, and
those specific reporters no longer draw a paycheck to do such work. This means the next
generation of corrupt politicians will have a much lower degree of difficulty as they fatten
their bank accounts while providing their services to the highest corporate bidder.
Blowing stories of corruption and misconduct, as horrific as they are, may not be the
worst of it. Even more serious is the lack of coverage of the details of what is in legisla-
tion and budgets, what is debated at hearings and buried in official reports, and what
regulatory agencies are doing, even when there is no explicit corruption, but just politics
as usual. This is the stuff of politics; when people talk about wanting a serious issues-based
politics, this is precisely what is meant. But everywhere in the nation most of this
government activity is taking place in the dark, certainly compared to two or three or four
decades ago.
Everywhere it is the same: far fewer journalists attempting to cover more and more.
As the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) observes, reporters and editors ‘‘are
spending more time on reactive stories and less on labor-intensive ‘enterprise’ pieces.’’
Television reporters ‘‘who just once reported the news now have many other tasks, and
FAREWELL TO JOURNALISM? 685
more newscasts to feed, so they have less time to research their stories.’’ It is especially
disastrous at the local level, where smaller news media and newsrooms have been wiped
out in a manner reminiscent to a plague. The Los Angeles Times is now the primary news
medium to cover 88 municipalities and 10 million people, but its metro staff has been cut
in half since 2000. The staff ‘‘is spread thinner and there are fewer people on any given
area,’’ Metro editor David Lauter laments. ‘‘We’re not there every day, or even every week
or every month. Unfortunately, nobody else is either’’ (Waldman and the Working Group
on Information Needs of Communities, 2011, pp. 12, 90, 46, 52).
There may not be much journalism, but there still is plenty of ‘‘news.’’ On the
surface, at least on cable and satellite television, it can seem like we are marinated in
endless news. Increasingly, though, it is unfiltered public relations generated surrepti-
tiously by corporations and governments, in a manner that might make Walter Lippmann,
were he to return to life, never stop throwing up. In 1960 there was less than one PR agent
for every working journalist, a ratio of 0.75-to-1. By 1990 the ratio was just over 2-to-1. In
2012, the ratio stands at four PR people for every working journalist. At the current rates of
change, the ratio may well be 6-to-1 within a few years (McChesney and Nichols, 2011,
preface to paperback edition and Appendix 3). There are far fewer reporters to interrogate
the spin and the press releases, so the likelihood that they get presented as legitimate
‘‘news’’ has become much greater. The Pew Center conducted a comprehensive analysis of
what the sources were for original news stories in Baltimore in 2009; it determined that
fully 86 percent originated with official sources and press releases. These stories were
presented as news based on the labor and judgment of professional journalists, but, as
Pew noted, they generally presented the PR position without any alteration (Pew Research
Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2010). As Lance Bennett (forthcoming)
demonstrates, PR notwithstanding, this is a fertile environment for conjecture, gossip and
half-baked stories to get into the news.
For a good decade, pundits have argued that the Internet would provide a new
system of commercially viable journalism. Jeff Jarvis asserts that ‘‘Thanks to the web . . .
journalism will not only survive but prosper and grow far beyond its present limitations’’
(2010, p. xx). To the view of observers like Jarvis all Americans must do is let the Internet
work its magic in combination with the market and the country’s problems will be solved.
After a good decade of experimentation, it is clear that as traditional journalism
disintegrates, no models for making Web journalism*even bad journalism*profitable at
anywhere near the level necessary for a credible popular news media have been
developed, and there is no reason to expect any in the visible future.
3
Today we have a
few thousand paid online news workers, interpreted liberally to include many aggregators
who do little or no newsgathering or reporting or even writing. More often than not, the
best-known bloggers and online journalists are supported by some old medium which
provides the resources. When these old media go down, the number of paid digital
journalists is likely to shrink, not grow. Severely underpaid or unpaid, research concludes
that the original journalism provided by the Internet gravitates to what is easy and fun,
tending to ‘‘focus on lifestyle topics, such as entertainment, retail, and sports*not on hard
news’’ (Waldman and the Working Group on Information Needs of Communities, 2011,
p. 16).
At the heart of too many of the emerging corporate online journalism undertakings
is an understanding that the wages paid to journalists can be slashed dramatically, while
at the same time workloads are increased to levels not seen for generations, if ever.
686 ROBERT W. MCCHESNEY
Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times captured this in his assessment of AOL’s 2011
purchase of the Huffington Post: ‘‘To grasp the Huffington Post’s business model, picture a
galley rowed by slaves and commanded by pirates.’’ In the ‘‘new-media landscape,’’ he
wrote, ‘‘it’s already clear that the merger will push more journalists more deeply into the
tragically expanding low-wage sector of our increasingly brutal economy.’’ With massive
unemployment and dismal prospects, the extreme downward pressure on wages
and working conditions for journalists is the two-ton elephant that just climbed into
democracy’s bed. ‘‘In the new media,’’ Rutten concludes, ‘‘many of the worst abuses of the
old economy’s industrial capitalism*the sweatshop, the speedup and piecework; huge
profits for the owners; desperation, drudgery and exploitation for the workers. No child
labor, yet, but if there were more page views in it . . .’’ (Rutten, 2011).
In April 2010, one of the most thoughtful and well-regarded figures in American
journalism, Karen Dunlap, the president of the Poynter Institute, testified before a FCC
panel on the state of American journalism. She pointed to a fresh analysis of the media
business by a Poynter scholar ‘‘who calculated that the newspaper industry has lost $1.6
billion in reporting and editing capacity since 2000 or about 30 percent over that period.
This comes from the sector that produces the vast majority of original reporting in local,
national and international news. Even the many news start-ups replace only a small
fraction of editorial capacity, and they, too, must find long-term sustainability.’’ Then
Dunlap repeated the conclusion of a just finished Project for Excellence in Journalism
report: ‘‘Unless some system of financing the production of content is developed, it is
difficult to see how reportorial journalism will not continue to shrink, regardless of the
potential tools offered by technology.’’4
The evidence points inexorably in one and only one direction: if the United States,
or any nation, is serious about improving journalism, not to mention creating a real media
utopia, the only way this can happen is with massive public subsidies. The market is not
getting it done, and there is no reason to think it is going to get it done. Journalism will
require a huge expansion of the nonprofit news media sector as well. It is imperative
to discontinue the practice of regarding journalism as a ‘‘business’’ and evaluating it by
business criteria (Levy and Nielssen, 2010). Instead, it is necessary to embrace the public
good nature of journalism. That is my core argument. If one accepts that, everything else
falls into place.
Let’s be clear on what is meant by the ‘‘public good’’ nature of journalism: that
means journalism is something society requires but that the market cannot produce in
sufficient quality or quantity. Readers or final news consumers have never provided
sufficient funds to subsidize the popular journalism system self-government requires. For
the first century of American history, the public good nature of journalism was understood
implicitly, and was addressed by massive postal and printing subsidies. For the past
century, the public good nature of journalism was masked by the infusion of advertising
to provide the vast majority of revenues supporting the news. But advertising had no
specific attachment to journalism, and is jumping ship as better alternatives present
themselves in the digital universe, especially as news media appear less commercially
attractive. Journalism increasingly is left standing naked in an unforgiving market, and it
is shriveling in the cold gusts.
The future of journalism left to the market will likely approach what education
would be like if all public subsidies were removed. With no subsidies, our education
system would remain excellent for the wealthy who could afford private schools in the first
FAREWELL TO JOURNALISM? 687
place, mediocre at best for the middle and upper-middle class, and non-existent or
positively frightening for the increasingly impoverished lower-middle and working class,
the vast majority of the nation. It would be a nightmare for any credible democratic or
humane society, and a major step back toward the Middle Ages. The same logic applies to
journalism. That means, in the landscape of 2010s America, enlightened public subsidies.
Understanding ‘‘journalism as a public good’’ also helps explain one of the persistent
questions I am asked when I discuss the crisis of journalism. ‘‘Isn’t the basic problem,’’ the
question generally begins, ‘‘that most people are morons who either have no interest in
journalism, or are only interested in idiotic stories about celebrities? If people wanted
good journalism, isn’t it logical to expect the commercial news media to give it to them?’’
On the surface this seems like such a convincing premise, that it is generally posed as a
rhetorical question, to which all who have any hope left for the human species are
expected to retreat in shame. Public good theory explains that no matter how strong the
consumer demand, it will never be sufficient to provide the resources for a popular
democratic journalism. Even when Americans have been most rabid about news and
politics, there was not sufficient demand for circulation revenues to subsidize a popular
news media.
But public good theory is important in another way: it also highlights that it is
impossible for the market to accurately gauge popular support for the news. The market
cannot express all of our values; we cannot individually ‘‘purchase’’ everything we value.
My experience discussing the crisis of journalism with tens of thousands of people over
the past several years has reinforced my view that a preponderance of Americans, and
especially younger Americans notorious for their lack of interest in newspapers and
conventional news media, want to have credible reporting on corporate and government
affairs, even if they do not necessarily plan to read or view the news reports thereby
produced. But they want to know that the work is being done and people in power are
being held accountable, issues are being covered, and they are willing use their tax dollars
to pay for journalism even if they themselves prefer to watch a reality TV show or listen to
their iPods.
And, who knows, to return rhetorical question fire, maybe if there were better and
more compelling journalism, people might not find it so irrelevant to their lives?
The questions that often arise when one submits news media should be regarded as
a public good, and should receive massive public subsidies, are ‘‘But, wait, doesn’t that
violate the American constitution and the American Way? Isn’t the American free press
tradition*indeed, the democratic press tradition*built on an explicit and unequivocal
ban on government subsidies? What are you, some kind of weirdo?’’
The jury may be out on the last question, but to the first two the answer is an
emphatic No. The emergence of advertising to provide the preponderance of resources
masked the public good nature of journalism. It gave the illusion that the market could
provide a sufficient quantity of journalism, and professional standards could guarantee
sufficient quality. But advertising always had an opportunistic relationship to the news,
and now that there are superior means to satisfy commercial ambitions, journalism sees its
revenue base evaporating. But if advertising has provided the majority of revenues to
support journalism since the late nineteenth century, how did US newspapers survive in
the nation’s first century when advertising played a much smaller role? Indeed, when
Tocqueville came to America he was astonished by the plethora of newspapers compared
to anywhere else in the world. What’s up with that?
688 ROBERT W. MCCHESNEY
The answer is simple: the American free press tradition has two components. First is
the aspect everyone is familiar with, the idea that the government should not exercise
prior restraint and censor the press. The second, every bit as important, is that it is the first
duty of the government to see that a free press actually exists so there is something of
value that cannot be censored. This second component of the American free press
tradition has been largely forgotten or ignored since the advent of the corporate-
commercial era of journalism, but the Supreme Court, in all relevant cases, has asserted its
existence and preeminence. Justice Potter Stewart noted: ‘‘The Free Press guarantee is,
in effect, a structural part of the Constitution’’ (Stewart, 1974�5, original emphasis). ‘‘The
primary purpose of the constitutional guarantee of a free press was,’’ he added, ‘‘to create
a fourth institution outside the Government as an additional check on the three official
branches.’’ Stewart concluded: ‘‘Perhaps our liberties might survive without an indepen-
dent established press. But the Founders doubted it, and, in the year 1974, I think we
can all be thankful for their doubts’’ (Stewart, 1974�5). In his opinion in the 1994 case
Turner Broadcasting System v. FCC, Reagan appointee Justice Anthony Kennedy concluded,
‘‘Assuring the public has access to a multiplicity of information sources is a governmental
purpose of the highest order’’ (Simon, 2002, p. 273).
Press subsidies are as American as apple pie; indeed, our democratic culture
was built upon them. In The Death and Life of American Journalism, John Nichols and
I demonstrated the crucial role that postal and printing subsidies played in the formation
of the republic and the first century of American history: ‘‘If the United States federal
government subsidized journalism today at the same level of GDP that it did in the 1840s,
the government would have to spend in the neighborhood of $30�35 billion annually’’
(McChesney and Nichols, 2011, p. xxvii).
Federal press subsidies*e.g. postal subsidies, paid government notices*have
diminished in real terms to only a small fraction of their nineteenth-century levels in real
terms, though they remain to the present day. Public broadcasting is the most visible
contemporary media subsidy and it received in 2008 approximately $1.1 billion in public
support annually, and only a fraction of that supports journalism. State and local govern-
ments as well as public universities provide much of this public subsidy, as well as some
$400 million by the federal government.
There are legitimate concerns about government control over the content of
journalism, and I reject any subsidies that would open the door to that outcome. I also
understand that a government with a massive military and national security complex
like the United States could be especially dangerous with its mitts on the keys to the
newsroom. But the United States, for all of its flaws, remains a democratic society, in
the conventional modern use of the term. Our state is capable of being pushed to make
progressive moves as well as regressive ones.
The problem with the categorical rejection of public subsidies in the United States
is that it not only ignores the actual history of massive democratic journalism subsidies in
the United States, it also does grave injustice to the really existing track record of other
democratic nations. What happens when we look at nations with multi-party demo-
cracies, advanced economies, electoral systems and civil liberties? Places like Germany,
Canada, Japan, Britain, Norway, Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, Belgium,
Sweden, France and Switzerland?
What do we find? For starters, all these nations are huge press subsidizers compared
to the United States. Let’s put it this way, what would the United States have to spend to
FAREWELL TO JOURNALISM? 689
support public broadcasting, not to mention other journalism subsidies, if it spent at the
per capita rates of other democratic nations? If America subsidized public media at the
same per capita rate as nations with similar political economies like Canada, Australia and
New Zealand, US public broadcasters would have a government subsidy in the $7�10
billion range. If America subsidized public media at the same per capita rate as nations
along the lines of Japan, France or Great Britain, US public broadcasters would have a
government subsidy in the $16�25 billion range. If America subsidized public media at the
same per capita rate as Germany or Norway or Denmark, US public broadcasters would
have a government subsidy in the neighborhood of $30�35 billion (Benson and Powers,
2011, p. 61).
This does not even factor in the extensive newspaper subsidies that several
democracies employ. If the United States federal government subsidized newspapers at
the same per capita rate as Norway, it would make a direct outlay of approximately $3
billion annually. Sweden spends slightly less per capita, and has extended the subsidies
to digital newspapers. France is the champion at newspaper subsidies. If a federal gov-
ernment subsidy provided the portion of the overall revenues of the US newspaper
industry that France does for its publishers, it would have conservatively spent $6 billion
in 2008.5
By American conventional wisdom, all these purported democracies must be much
closer to police states with Orwellian propaganda the order of the day. But are they? I start
with Britain’s The Economist, a business magazine keenly in favor of private enterprise,
deregulation, privatization and disinclined toward large public sectors. Every year The
Economist produces a highly acclaimed ‘‘Democracy Index,’’ which ranks all the nations of
the world on the basis of how democratic they are. In 2011 only 25 nations qualified as
democratic (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2011). The criteria are: electoral process and
pluralism; functioning of government; political participation; political culture; and civil
liberties. The United States ranks 19th by these criteria, according to The Economist. Most
of the 18 nations ranking ahead of the United States had government press subsidies on a
per capita basis at least 10 or 20 times that of the United States. The top four nations on
the list*Norway, Iceland, Denmark, and Sweden*are among the top six or seven per
capita press subsidizers in the world. Yet these are the four most democratic and freest
nations on earth, according to The Economist, and they all have perfect or near-perfect
scores on civil liberties. (The United States is tied for the lowest civil liberties score among
the 25 democracies, and on this issue trails a good 20 of those nations in the more
dubious ‘‘flawed democracies’’ category in The Economist’s rankings.)
Although all of the Democracy Index criteria implicitly depend to a large extent
upon having a strong press system*and the report specifically discusses press freedom as
a crucial indicator of democracy*‘‘freedom of the press’’ itself is not one of the six
measured variables. Is there a more direct take on the relationship?
Fortunately, there is, if the Democracy Index is supplemented with the research of
Freedom House, an American organization created in the 1940s to sponsor freedom
and oppose totalitarianism of the left and right, with special emphasis on the left. Free-
dom House is very much an ‘‘establishment’’ organization, with close ties to prominent
American political and economic figures. Every year it, too, ranks all the nations of the
world on the basis of how free and effective their press systems are. Their research is
detailed and sophisticated and particularly concerned with any government meddling
whatsoever with private news media. For that reason, all communist nations tend to rank
690 ROBERT W. MCCHESNEY
in a virtual tie for dead last as having the least free press systems in the world. Venezuela
currently is ranked number 163 in the world, despite having a large and vocal legal
opposition press that opposes the elected Chavez government. State regulation of
commercial broadcast media as well as the chilling effect of government criticism of the
uncensored private print media are enough for Freedom House to consign Venezuela
to the same group of nations largely consisting of outright dictatorships with scarcely a
trace of significant domestic media dissent; Venezuela is the only nation in the Americas
alongside Cuba considered to have a ‘‘not free’’ press. So Freedom House can go toe-
to-toe with anyone when it comes to having sensitive antennae to detect government
meddling with the existence or prerogatives of private news media.
Freedom House hardly favors the home team. It ranks the United States as being
tied with the Czech Republic as having the 24th freest press system in the world. America
is ranked so low because of failures to protect sources and because economic conditions
have made journalism more difficult.
So what nations rank at the top of Freedom House’s list of the freest press systems
in the world? The list is dominated by the democratic nations with the very largest per
capita journalism subsidies in the world. Four of the first five nations listed by Freedom
House are the same nations that topped The Economist’s Democracy Index, and all rank
among the top seven per capita press subsidizers in the world (Freedom House, 2010). In
fact the lists match to a remarkable extent. That should be no surprise, as one would
expect the nations with the freest and best press systems to rank as the most democratic
nations. What has been missing from the narrative is that the nations with the freest press
systems are also the nations that make the greatest public investment in journalism, and
therefore provide the basis for being strong democracies.
What the Freedom House research underscores is that few of these successful
democracies permit the type of political meddling that is routine in US public broad-
casting, particularly by those politicians who want to eliminate public broadcasting, with
no sense of irony, because it has been ‘‘politicized.’’ Although no nation is perfect and
even the best examples have limitations, these nations consistently and overwhelmingly
demonstrate that there are means to effectively prevent governments-in-power from
having undue influence over public media operations, much like how in the United States
we have created mechanisms to prevent Governors and state legislatures from dictating
the faculty research and course syllabi at public universities. In other democratic nations,
public broadcasting systems tend to be popular and are defended by political parties from
across the political spectrum.
Research demonstrates that in those democratic nations with well-funded and
prominent nonprofit and noncommercial broadcasting systems, political knowledge tends
to be relatively higher than in nations without substantial public broadcasting, and that
the information gap between the rich and the working class and poor is much smaller
(Curran et al., 2009).
Stephen Cushion’s recent research confirms this pattern and notes that public
service broadcasters tend to do far more campaign reporting than their commercial
counterparts. One conclusion of Cushion’s is especially striking: those nations that have
maintained strong public broadcasting continue to have better campaign coverage
(e.g. news about policy that can help inform citizens about the relative merits of a political
party or a particular politician). Moreover, the effect of strong public broadcasting is
that commercial broadcasters tend to maintain higher standards than they have in
FAREWELL TO JOURNALISM? 691
nations where public broadcasting has fallen off in resources and campaign coverage
(Cushion, forthcoming).
Likewise, in a manner that evokes the US postal subsidies of the nineteenth
century*and that might baffle the contemporary American cynical about the possibility
of democratic governance*the newspaper subsidies tend to be directed to helping the
smaller and more dissident newspapers, without ideological bias, over the large successful
commercial newspapers (Cushion, forthcoming). Recent research on the European press
concludes that as journalism subsidies increased, the overall reporting in those nations did
not kowtow but in fact grew more adversarial toward the government in power (Benson,
2011, pp. 314�9).
The point is not to romanticize other democratic nations or to put them on a
pedestal. Journalism is in varying degrees of crisis in nations worldwide. In other countries,
resources for journalism are declining as in the United States, even if the public subsidies
provide a cushion. Moreover, the quality of journalism is hardly guaranteed even with
greater resources; controversy and occasional sharp criticism of severe flaws properly
attends any discussion of the caliber of journalism in every democratic nation (see Blumler
and Coleman, 2010; Davies, 2008). Resources are simply a necessary precondition for
sufficient democratic journalism.
To put it another way: journalism subsidies are compatible with a democratic
society, a flourishing uncensored private news media and an adversarial journalism. The
track record is clear that the problem of creating a viable free press system in a democratic
and free society is a solvable problem. There may not be perfect solutions but there are
good and workable solutions. And in times like these, when the market is collapsing,
and when self-government is imperiled, they are mandatory. In this instance, Margaret
Thatcher’s aphorism holds true: this is no alternative.
NOTES
1. See Smith (2004, p. 191), Solomon (1992, p. 66) and Trevor Morris and Simon
Goldsworthy (2008). See also http://www.nku.edu/ �turney/prclass/readings/media_rel.
html.
2. All quotations and statistics mentioned are from Pew Research Center’s Project for
Excellence in Journalism (2010).
3. For a treatment of the scorched-earth approach of a newspaper publisher who is
regarded as a visionary in the move from print to digital, see Carr (2011, pp. B1, B6). For a
treatment of the handful of the most successful new digital newsrooms at the local level,
which depend overwhelmingly on donations and foundation grants, see The Knight
Foundation (2011).
4. These remarks were prepared for testimony offered on April 20, 2010 at the FCC
workshop, ‘‘Newspaper/Broadcast Cross-Ownership Impact on Competition and Diversity
in the Media Marketplace’’ (Dunlap, 2010).
5. See Rodney Benson and Matthew Powers (2011, pp. 49�53, 34). The French government
provides roughly 13 percent of the revenues of the French newspaper industry. The total
revenues of US newspaper industry in 2008 were approximately $48 billion. See the data
of the Newspaper Association of America (http://www.naa.org/TrendsandNumbers.aspx).
Our estimate does not include the emergency three-year $950 million subsidy the
French government made to address the crisis facing French newspapers. On a per
capita basis that would be like the US government making a three-year $5 billion
additional subsidy.
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The rise of anti-Muslim
prejudice: Media and
Islamophobia in Europe
and the United States
Christine Ogan
Indiana University, USA
Lars Willnat
Indiana University, USA
Rosemary Pennington
Indiana University, USA
Manaf Bashir
Kuwait University, Kuwait
Abstract
The goal of this study is to determine the possible factors leading to increased
anti-Muslim sentiment or Islamophobia in a comparative examination of public opinion in
the United States and Europe. Secondary analyses of data from the 2008 Pew Global
Attitude Project and the 2010 Pew News Interest Index, allow us to assess the role
of religious practice, news interest and political affiliation in the attitudes toward Muslim
minorities in several countries. Predictors of anti-Muslim attitudes include being politi-
cally more conservative and being older in all countries, and paying close attention to
news coverage of the Park51 Islamic Community Center in the United States (which was
proposed to be built near Ground Zero in New York). In France, but not in the other
countries of the study, the importance of the respondents’ religion was positively related
to anti-Muslim attitudes.
Corresponding author:
Christine Ogan, Indiana University, 4317 E. Morningside Drive, Bloomington, IN 47408, USA.
Email: ogan@indiana.edu
the International
Communication Gazette
2014, Vol. 76(1) 27–46
ª The Author(s) 2013
Reprints and permission:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
Keywords
Islamophobia, public opinion polls, anti-Muslim attitudes, anti-immigration attitudes,
media coverage, secondary comparative analysis
Prejudice against Muslims in Western countries preceded the 9/11 attacks in the United States,
but those events and other acts of violence by terrorists since that time have created a climate
for increasing anti-Muslim attitudes in many countries (Amnesty International,
2012).
These anti-Muslim attitudes persist despite the low numbers of home-grown Islamic
terrorists in Western countries (see Schanzer et al., 2010). Charles Kurzman’s analysis of
acts of terrorism committed by Muslims finds that fewer than one percent of Muslims
around the world have been involved in any militant movement in the last 25 years
(2011). Yet at least two research reports document discriminatory attitudes (such as
those targeting cultural or religious practices) and behaviors (for example, ones that limit
employment or education) focused on Muslims in several European countries in recent
years (Amnesty International, 2012; Zick et al., 2011). In surveys conducted by Gallup in
the United States, Great Britain, France and Germany from 2008 to 2011 significant
percentages of respondents (from 30% in France to 52% in the United States) have
reported that Western societies do not respect Muslims (Gallup World, 2013).
A growing number of scholars have summarized this climate of anti-Muslim feelings in
the United States and Europe under the label of Islamophobia (Mastnak, 2010; Rana, 2007).
Historically, Islamophobia, or the fear or hatred of Muslims and Islam, has been used to
describe the anti-Muslim feelings of a mostly Christian population in Europe since
immigrants from Muslim countries began arriving there in the early 14th century. Current
anti-Muslim attitudes in Europe have been revealed in the speeches of recently popular polit-
ical parties that call for action against Muslim minorities in their countries, through policies
that restrict the dress and activities of Muslims, by the building of what are perceived to be
overly large mosques, and in public opinion polls across Europe (Zick et al., 2011).
A recent poll conducted by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Germany, for example,
found that between 27% and 61% of people in eight European countries believe there
are too many Muslims in their countries. The same survey found that more than half
of the people in these nations (except in Portugal) think that Muslims are too demanding,
while a similar percentage say that Islam is a religion of intolerance (Zick et al., 2011:
61). The alleged intolerance of Islam is taken as a justification for Islamophobic attitudes
that are a part of the European mainstream, according to Hockenos (2011). In 2010, the
Council of Europe viewed the issue to be of such importance that its Parliamentary
Assembly developed a series of recommendations to combat religious intolerance in its
member states (Recommendation 27, 23 June 2010), but little change has so far been
detected in public opinion.
Though the United States has relatively few Muslims—an estimated 6 million or .6%
of respondents in a national survey (Pew, no date)—Islamophobia is as serious an issue
there as in Europe. Public opinion polls that have tracked American attitudes toward
Muslims since 2001 show that Americans’ favorable ratings of Islam have dropped from
47% in 2001 to 37% in 2010 (ABC News/Washington Post, 2010). Although many
28 the International Communication Gazette 76(1)
attribute the rise of anti-Islamic attitudes in the United States to the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, others blame the U.S. media, which tend to employ Samuel Huntington’s
Clash of Civilizations understanding of Islam when reporting stories about Muslims or
their religion (Seib, 2004). Huntington’s controversial view of post cold war global
conflict was that culture—largely based on religion, rather than ideology or geogra-
phy—would be the cause.
Focus of study
Our study examines the factors that lead to the holding of Islamophobic attitudes in
several European countries (France, Germany, Spain, and Great Britain) with large
Muslim populations and the United States. As Muslim communities continue to grow in
non-Muslim majority countries, and issues of identity and belonging only become more
salient, it is imperative to understand more fully the intersection of demographics, media,
and attitudes toward Muslims and Islam. Since media coverage of Muslims and Islam is
likely to shape the opinions of those who have limited or no contact with this religion and
its people, it is important to analyze the potential associations these media portrayals might
have with people’s attitudes toward Islam in general and Muslims in particular.
We already know that media play a big role in framing the public discourse about
Muslims and Islam in Europe and the United States. For example, a meta-analysis of
research of European media content related to immigrants by Bennett et al. (2011), found
that although variation in tone and balance occurred in the media of member states, Mus-
lims were generally portrayed in stereotypical terms, and Islam was seen as a threat to
security. In the United States, research by sociologist Christopher Bail (2012) finds that
U.S. media coverage of the 9/11 events was dominated by messages of fear and anger
originating in the press releases from anti-Muslim fringe organizations rather than more
moderate messages emanating from mainstream civil society groups. He goes so far as to
charge that such messages changed the mainstream discourse itself. However, instead of
relying on an analysis of media coverage of Muslims and Islam in Europe and the United
States, our study tries to determine the actual weight that media coverage might have in
guiding public opinion relative to other possible influences, like political affiliation and
religious beliefs or practices.
Another goal of this study is to determine whether the underlying predictors of
Islamophobia are the same in Europe and the United States. Anti-Islamic attitudes and
behaviors have eroded the tenets of democracy on both sides of the Atlantic, and it is
important to check whether these trends have been fueled by the same basic factors such
as political ideology or lack of education. According to Werbner (2005), democracy
requires a ‘‘shared ethical convictions about the validity of cultural differences’’ and
such ethical commonalities are difficult to maintain while the ‘‘globalized images of the
Muslim religious fanatic’’ exist (9).
This study is based on a secondary analysis of representative public opinion polls con-
ducted in the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Spain and Italy in 2008 and
2010. We begin by examining first whether anti-Muslim attitudes have increased in the
United States and in Europe in recent years and by checking the demographic predictors
of Islamophobia. Special emphasis is placed on the interaction of political ideology and
Ogan et al. 29
religiosity. We then analyze the potential relationship between exposure to negative
news about Muslim-related issues and attitudes toward Muslims in the United States
by analyzing public opinion data that have been collected during the intense public
controversy that surrounded the planned building of an Islamic Community Center in
New York City in late 2010.
Anti-Muslim sentiment in Europe
During the past four decades, the Muslim population in Europe has increased dramati-
cally through migration and family reunification, creating tensions that, perhaps, should
not be all that surprising. In Fear of Small Numbers: An Essay on the Geography of
Anger, Appadurai (2006) suggests that these tensions between majority and minority
groups in Europe are not a result of what Samuel Huntington (1993) called a ‘‘clash
of civilizations,’’ but instead the outcome of what is a globalized civilization of clashes.
. . . there is a growing tendency to see global moral enemies as being morally
indistinguishable from local or internal enemies. This double logic—globalizing internal
moral opponents and localizing faraway moral enemies—is the key to the logic of
ideocide and civicide (118).
This clash between the local and the global is clearly being felt in Europe today.
Across Western Europe, there are more than 17 million Muslims, located in 17 countries
with the largest numbers living in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy and
Spain (Pew, 2010c). In all of these nations, there has been an increase in Islamophobic
discourse, perhaps most notably in the Netherlands where Geert Wilders, Dutch MP and
leader of the nationalistic Freedom Party, has called for a complete halt to immigration to
the Netherlands from all Muslim countries.
This shift in public discourse on immigration has also led to recent changes in public
policy related to Muslim practices. Earlier in 2010, the Belgian parliament voted to ban
niqabs (face-covering veils in Islam) in public places. However, the government fell
before the Senate could vote it into law. In a similar move, the French legislature out-
lawed niqabs from being worn publicly. The law took effect in spring 2011 with a fine
of 150 Euros for wearing a niqab in public. French Justice Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie
explained the need for this law in terms of French integration and societal values, saying
that to live with an open face ‘‘is a question of dignity and equality’’ (Davies,
2010).
There are other signs that more and more Europeans fear the growing number of
Muslim immigrants. Bleich (2009), who compared responses to public opinion polls
conducted between 1988 and 2008 to determine whether Islamic hatred had increased
in Britain and France over a 20-year period, found that anti-Muslim attitudes in the two
countries are higher today than in the late 1980s. In Switzerland, where a referendum was
held in 2009 to determine whether mosques could attach minarets to their buildings, a
Gallup poll found that about 4 in 10 citizens see an irresolvable contradiction between
the values of liberal democracy and Islam (Manchin, 2009).
A trend toward stronger anti-immigration attitudes can also be observed in Germany.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently said that multicultural approach has failed in
30 the International Communication Gazette 76(1)
Germany, noting that immigrants are not willing to adapt to German society (Siebold,
2010). The debate over foreigners in Germany also has gained much publicity since
former central banker Thilo Sarrazin (2010) published Deutschland schafft sich a
b
(Germany Does Away With Itself), a book in which he accused Muslim immigrants
of lowering the intelligence of German society.
Media content analyses document the rise of anti-Muslim stories in some European
countries as well as a shift in the focus of these stories. In a study that examined nearly
1000 newspaper stories across Great Britain from 2000 to 2008 alongside an analysis of
two years of visual images in articles, Moore et al. (2008) found that the bulk of coverage
of British Muslims—around two-thirds—focuses on Muslims as a threat (in relation to
terrorism), a problem (in terms of differences in values), or both (Muslim extremism in
general). The number of such stories increased steadily from 2002 on. However, while
terrorism was a consistent topic of these stories, the authors also found an increasing
coverage of religious and cultural issues, alongside a very small number of stories
related to immigration and asylum.
Islamophobia in the United States
Some researchers point to the Iranian Revolution in 1979 as the starting point for
Islamophobia in the United States. Gottschalk and Greenwald (2008), however, find
Islamophobia present in the United States far earlier and argue that Americans were using
the fear of Islam as a unifying concept in defining America. Similarly, Rana (2007) links
America’s Islam connection to the transatlantic slave trade and ties American anti-Muslim
sentiment with racism—noting that Islam figured as an important aspect of the early
formation of U.S. racism. According to the author, this construction of an African-
American Muslim ‘‘other’’ has been perpetuated by the media through its coverage of the
arrests of African-American Muslims suspected of terrorist crimes (2007: 159).
In their study of the portrayal of Muslims in several U.S. newspapers in the late 1980s
and early 1990s, Sheikh et al.(1995) found that Muslims were portrayed negatively in news
reporting. However, most of the stories that mentioned Muslims were about wars or other
types of conflicts; they did not find evidence of a more generalized negative bias. After 9/
11, this negative media image of Muslims was compounded by reporting on Islam and
Muslims that relied on Huntington’s (1993) idea of a ‘‘clash of civilizations’’ for its frame-
work (Abrahamian, 2003). It was a framework, Seib (2004) writes, the American media
were all too ready to embrace after the fall of Communism in the late 1990s.
Other studies of media coverage of Muslims or Muslim countries have shown that such
coverage has been largely negative. Ali and Khalid (2008) examined coverage of three
categories of Muslim countries (U.S. allies, U.S. enemies, and neutral countries) by News-
week and Time Magazine from 1991 to 2001. Even before 9/11, their study found that
overall coverage of Muslim countries in each group was largely negative. A 2009 Pew
study of religion-related news in the U.S. press did not examine whether news during that
year was positive or negative, but instead focused on the main stories of the year. In gen-
eral, religion-related news took up a small part of the print, television or online news (1%
or less in 2008 and 2009). However, the main stories for the year touched on Islam by
Ogan et al. 31
focusing on negative stories such as the ban on minarets in Switzerland and the shooting at
Fort Hood in Texas by Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan (Pew, 2010b).
Media Tenor (2010), which examined the coverage of Muslims and Islam on the U.S.
major networks from January to August, 2010, concluded that ‘‘there are virtually no
positive issues for Muslims within and outside of the US in the view of U.S. television
news. International conflicts, terrorism and domestic security remain the top issues in
2010. References to Islamic religious life were critical as well.’’
Media coverage of the Islamic community center in New York City
Anti-Muslim attitudes in the United States became highly visible in early 2010 during
the controversy that surrounded the planned building of an Islamic Community Center
a few blocks from Ground Zero in New York City (Hernandez, 2010). Those who say
that these attitudes have been triggered by the media point to conservative politicians
whose inflammatory speeches were cited in the press (for example, former Republican
congressman Newt Gingrich calling supporters of the project ‘‘apologists for radical Isla-
mist hypocrisy (see Hertzberg, 2010: 27), the blogger Pamela Geller (who insisted on
calling the center the ‘‘Ground Zero mosque’’ despite its location two blocks from the
World Trade Center site), and other commentary favoring the conservative political
views that target Muslims.
Media organizations made speculations about what to call the building—a mosque, a
cultural center or both. Many outlets could not even agree on the characteristics of a
mosque. Supporters of the project refer to it as the ‘‘Islamic Community Center,’’
‘‘Park51’’ (referencing the street address on Park Place), or simply ‘‘Islamic Cultural
Center.’’ Those who oppose Park51 called it an ‘‘Islamic citadel,’’ ‘‘the 9/11 victory
mosque,’’ or ‘‘Park51 mosque.’’
The planned Islamic Community Center rapidly became national news. Many media
outlets reported that should the plans for building the Center be canceled, many extremist
organizations would take it as the trigger for hostile actions against Americans at home
and abroad. The culmination of the discussion took place right before the 9/11 commem-
orations and was sparked by the threats made concerning the burning of the Quran by a
minister from a Gainesville, Florida church. Negative publicity placed the minister at the
center of the Park51 issue, even though both issues have nothing in common. David Ger-
gen, CNN senior political analyst, supported the extensive media coverage of the min-
ister and argued that ‘‘it was perfectly legitimate to cover him in terms of
Islamophobia. I do think he is representative of a fever we see in the country that needs
to be contained’’ (Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees, 2010).
According to a Pew (2010d) study that examined the news coverage for the week of
6–12 September 2010, the second most covered topic during that week was anti-Muslim
sentiment, filling 15% of the news hole. The fourth most covered topic that week was the
Park51 Community Center, with 4% of the news hole. According to the research,
coverage of the two controversies also illustrates the different news agendas of radio and
television talk show hosts. While the conservative hosts dedicated slightly more cover-
age to the mosque story than their liberal counterparts, liberal talkers devoted about four
times as much attention to the Koran burning saga as the conservative hosts.
32 the International Communication Gazette 76(1)
American national and local media used multiple public opinion polls to bolster the
reporting of Park51. A Daily News poll found that 48% of New York residents opposed
the Center, with more women than men in opposition. In particular, 52% of women
wanted to keep it out of lower Manhattan, compared to 41% of men (McShane,
2010). A Fox News poll revealed that 64% of respondents opposed, 30% were in favor,
while 6% remained undecided (Blanton, 2010). Polls also found a difference in respon-
dents’ opinions depending on the distance from the proposed construction; Manhatta-
nites were more supportive of the project, while Staten Islanders are mostly against
(Hertzberg, 2010).
The conservative Fox News tended to report news about the Islamic Community
Center with public opinion polls that showed that almost 3 of 4 Americans were against
building the Center (see Fox News: 13 August 2010; 20 August 2010; 8 September 2010;
9 September 2010). Fox News also linked President Obama’s supportive statements
about the Center with a Pew poll on religion, which showed that nearly one in five Amer-
icans wrongly believed him to be a Muslim rather than a Christian (Fox News, 20 August
2010).
Although new media are not the focus of this research, it is important to note that
social media such as Twitter and Facebook also became important tools of supporters
and critics of the Center. In addition to the networking they provide, such sites also serve
to help shape both identity and community (Baym, 2010; Gruzd et al., 2011; Miller,
2011) and they served that purpose in connection to Park51. Specifically, a number of
Facebook groups targeting the issue of the Islamic Community Center in New York were
created: Against the Mosque at Ground Zero, Stop The Ground Zero Mosque, Yes to the
Mosque Near Ground Zero, New Yorkers Against the Mosque at Ground Zero, Cordoba
Initiative, and 1,000,000 Against The Mosque at Ground Zero. Each group was joined by
a large number of ‘‘followers’’—creating an easily accessible community of ‘‘believers’’
who worked to shape the stories the mainstream media told of the controversy.
At the same time, the blogosphere became a source of intense public debate surround-
ing the Islamic Community Center. According to the Pew Research Center’s New Media
Index (Pew, 2010a) that analyzes millions of blogs on a weekly basis, the Park51 issue
was the second most popular subject for comment during the week of 9–13 August 2010.
During that week, 18% of the news links from the blogs were about that topic and were
dominated by anti-center opinions.
Increasingly, the blogosphere is impacting the types of stories told by mainstream
journalists, as well as how they are telling those stories and the sorts of experts journalists
interview (Barlow, 2008). Anti-Islam and anti-Muslim bloggers such as Pamela Geller
and Daniel Pipes have fashioned themselves into legitimate experts on Islam largely
on the strength of their blog following—both were highly visible in the mainstream news
media during the Park51 debate.
Research questions and hypotheses
As discussed in the previous sections, even before the attacks on 9/11, Muslims in the
United States were linked to acts of terrorism, leading to an overall animosity toward all
Muslims. The plan for the Islamic Community Center in New York simply served as
Ogan et al. 33
another flash point for anti-Muslim feelings. In several European countries, on the other
hand, right-wing conservative politicians who spout anti-Islamic rhetoric have gained a
foothold and increasingly feel comfortable to speak out. In addition, new laws have been
passed in various European countries such as Sweden and Denmark that constrict immi-
gration from predominantly Muslim countries. Our first research question therefore asks:
RQ1: Has the degree of Islamophobia increased both in Europe and the United States
during the past years?
To answer this question, we will analyze public opinion data collected between 2004
and 2008 by the Pew Global Attitudes Project (Pew, 2008). The surveys track the favor-
ability of Muslims among representative samples of respondents from in the United
States, Great Britain, France, Germany, and Spain with an identical 4-point question
(very favorable, somewhat favorable, somewhat unfavorable, very unfavorable) that is
asked once every year. Data from the 2008 survey will be analyzed to test whether
personal demographic factors are associated with these attitudes.
There is also mounting evidence that anti-Muslim attitudes are linked to political
party affiliation. In a recent survey study of American values, for example, 66% of the
members of the conservative Tea Party said that Muslim values are not compatible with
American values nor its way of life, while 63% of Republicans responded similarly
(Jones et al., 2011: 10). In the same study, 68% of those who ‘‘most trust’’ the conser-
vative Fox News for information about politics viewed Islamic and American values
as incompatible (Jones et al., 2011: 11). We therefore expect that politically conservative
Americans (Republicans and those affiliated with the Tea Party) will be more likely to
express anti-Islamic attitudes (Jones et al., 2011). Across Europe too, researchers have
found a relationship between right wing extremism and anti-Muslim attitudes (see
Langenbacher and Schellenberg, 2011). Our first hypothesis therefore states that:
H1: More conservative respondents will hold stronger anti-Muslim attitudes in Europe and
the United States.
In addition to the impact of political party affiliation on attitudes toward Muslims,
religious beliefs may also factor into the rise of Islamophobia—at least in the United
States. Based on an extensive analysis of public opinion data collected in the past four
decades in the United States, Putnam and Campbell (2010), for example, argue that reli-
giosity has become highly correlated with membership in the Republican Party. They
document the beginning of this trend in the 1980s, when two issues, abortion and gay
rights, became part of the political agenda. Since these two issues have been traditionally
linked to religiosity, once they became an important part of the Republican’s party plat-
form, the connection between church-going and being a Republican was forged. That
trend has increased over time to the point where there was a 22% difference in support
for McCain in the 2008 presidential election by those who said they attended church at
least weekly (61%) and those who said they never go to church (39%) (Putnam and
Campbell, 2010: 375). It is therefore possible that Islamophobia adds to the issues that
link religion and party affiliation in the United States. Islamophobia has been linked to
34 the International Communication Gazette 76(1)
religion in Europe as well, but in a slightly different way. Europe has been imagined as
an ‘‘exclusively Christian’’ space (European Commission and European Monitoring
Center on Racism and Xenophobia, 2003) in which Muslims, native born or immigrant,
are seen as incompatible ‘‘other’’ who do not belong in a historically Christian Europe
(Schiller, 2005). We therefore test the hypothesis that:
H2: Respondents with more frequent religious practice will hold stronger anti-Muslim atti-
tudes in the United States—but not in Europe.
In addition to political party affiliation and religiosity, there might be other important
demographic factors that correlate with more anti-Muslim attitudes in the United States
and Europe. The surveys on which this study is based include a series of questions that
probe respondents’ gender, age, education, marital status, employment status and income.
Based on previous studies of anti-Muslim attitudes, we expect that especially lower levels
of education and unemployment are associated with anti-Islamic attitudes (Jones et al.,
2011). On the other hand, women and those who are younger are expected to be more accept-
ing of Muslims (Jones et al., 2011; Saad, 2006). Our second research question therefore asks:
RQ2: What other demographic factors (other than political party affiliation and religiosity)
predict attitudes towards Muslims in Europe and the United States.
As we note above, both the traditional news media and the blogosphere paid a great deal
of attention to the Park51 story for at least two weeks in September 2010, and much of that
coverage was negative. It is therefore reasonable to assume that this negative coverage
might have had an effect on Americans who either did not know much about Muslims and
Islam or already held negative attitudes toward one or both. Empirical evidence for such a
possible interaction between media coverage and latent anti-Muslim feelings is mounting.
One study that analyzed Fox News viewers’ anti-Muslim feelings reported, for example,
that 60% of Republicans who most trusted Fox News also believe that Muslims were
attempting to establish Shariah law in the United States (Jones et al., 2011: 19). And as
we reported earlier, those trusting Fox News the most also tend to believe that Islamic val-
ues are incompatible with American values (68%). That percentage is lower for those who
most trust CNN (37%) or public television new (37%) (Jones et al., 2011: 19). Given the
mostly negative coverage of the Park51 issue in the American media in September 2010,
we hypothesize that:
H3: Americans who paid more attention to news stories about Park51 will hold stronger
anti-Muslim attitudes than those who paid less attention.
Methods
This study is based on a secondary analysis of two survey studies conducted in 2008 and
2010. The data of the first survey is part of the 2008 Pew Global Attitudes Project, which
conducted telephone and face-to-face interviews in 20 nations. We chose to analyze the
Ogan et al. 35
data from the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany and Spain for this particular
project. Interviews in the five selected nations were conducted by telephone with repre-
sentative samples of adults in March and April of 2008. Sample sizes ranged from 752
respondents in Spain to 1000 respondents in the United States.
1
All surveys were based
on identical questionnaires that probed (among other things) respondents’ attitudes
toward Muslims, their perception of the economy, their perceived importance of
religion, and their religious practice and demographic background.
Attitudes toward Muslims in the 2008 surveys were measured by asking respondents
how favorable or unfavorable their opinions of Muslims are (1 ¼ very unfavorable;
4 ¼ very favorable). Perceptions of the economy were measured by asking respondents
how they would describe (a) the current economic situation in the United States and (b)
their personal economic situation (1 ¼ very bad; 4 ¼ very good). To assess religious atti-
tudes, respondents were asked how important religion is in their life (1 ¼ not important at
all; 4 ¼ very important) and how often they pray (1 ¼ never; 5 ¼ several times a day).
The survey also included demographic control measures for gender, age, education, mar-
ital status, employment status, political ideology (1 ¼ left; 6 ¼ right), and income.2
The data of the second survey come from the 2010 Pew (2010a) survey that was
conducted by telephone among a representative sample of 1003 adult Americans in
August 2010. The survey included various measures of respondents’ attitudes toward
Islam and Muslims in general and a specific question that assessed respondents’ attitudes
toward the construction of the Islamic Community Center. In addition, the survey gauged
respondents’ attention to news about the planned center, their self-perceived knowledge
about Islam, and whether they personally know any Muslims.
Attitudes toward Muslims in the 2010 survey were assessed with four separate
measures. Respondents were first asked whether they generally have favorable or unfa-
vorable opinions of Islam (1 ¼ very unfavorable; 4 ¼ very favorable). Next, they were
asked whether they believed that Islam is more likely than other religions to encourage
violence among its believers or not (coded as 3 ¼ support, 2 ¼ neutral, and 1 ¼ oppose).
Attitudes toward the Islamic Community Center itself were measured by asking whether
they supported building the Center close to the 9/11 site and whether they believe that
Muslims should have the same rights as other religious groups to build houses of worship
in local communities (both coded as 3 ¼ support, 2 ¼ neutral, and 1 ¼ oppose).
Attention to news about the controversy surrounding the Islamic Community Center
was assessed by asking respondents how closely they followed the news stories about the
Center (1 ¼ not at all closely; 4 ¼ very closely). The survey also included a measure of
self-perceived knowledge about Islam, asking respondents how much they know about
the Muslim religion and its practice (1 ¼ nothing at all; 4 ¼ a great deal). In addition, the
2010 poll included demographic control measures for respondents’ sex, age, education,
employment status, income, race and political affiliation.
3
In order to evaluate the potential impact of respondent’s economic and religious atti-
tudes on perceptions of Muslims in 2008, a separate linear regression analysis was run
for each of the five nations (United States, France, Germany, Great Britain, and Spain)
controlling for demographic factors and political ideology. Similar regression analyses
were run with the 2010 U.S. survey data to test the potential impact of respondents’
attention to news about the Islamic Community Center, their self-perceived knowledge
36 the International Communication Gazette 76(1)
of Islam, and their personal experience with Muslims on their perceptions of Muslims
and Islam. The dependent perception measures used in these four regression analyses
represented respondents’ (a) favorable or unfavorable opinions about Islam, (b) per-
ceived rights of Muslims compared to other religious groups, (c) perceptions of
Islam
as a non-violent religion, and (d) support for building the Islamic Community Center.
Because the study is based on secondary analysis of survey data from 2008 and 2010, not
all measures are completely identical or ideal to test the stated relationships. However, all
surveys were conducted by the same research company and share a set of similar questions
across nations and time. Moreover, all surveys are based on representative, national samples
and are relatively comparable. We therefore believe that our analysis makes an important
empirical contribution to the cross-national research on attitudes toward Muslims in the
United States and Europe.
Findings
In order to evaluate public opinion trends toward Muslims before 2008, we relied on data
collected in 2004 and 2008 by the Pew Global Attitudes Project (Pew, 2008). As Figure 1
shows, unfavorable opinions toward Muslims have increased in the United States
between 2004 and 2008. While in 2004 almost half (48%) of all Americans had unfavor-
able opinions of Muslims, this group increased to 56% in 2008. In Europe, on the other
hand, anti-Muslim opinions generally declined between 2004 and 2008. In Spain, for
example, negative opinions of Muslims declined from 46% in 2004 to 33% in 2008.
Similarly, unfavorable opinions of Muslims in Great Britain decreased slightly from
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
60
65
70
75
2004 2005 2006 2008
USA
Britain
France
Germany
Spain
Figure 1. Unfavorable Opinions About Muslims in the United States 2004–2008 (in percent).
Source: Pew Global Attitudes Project 2004–2008. Survey Question: On a different topic, please tell
me if you have a very favorable, somewhat favorable, somewhat unfavorable or very unfavorable
opinion of Muslims? (Pew, 2008). Somewhat and very unfavorable percentages were combined.
Ogan et al. 37
67% in 2004 to 62% in 2008. Anti-Muslim sentiments in France and Germany, however,
remained fairly stable at around 62% and 40%, respectively. Thus, while opinions of
Muslims deteriorated significantly in the United States between 2004 and 2008, this
trend was not observed in Europe.
Fairly strong support was found for Hypothesis 1, which predicts that more conserva-
tive respondents in Europe and the United States will hold stronger anti-Muslim attitudes.
Conservative respondents (measured in terms of political ideology) in the 2008 survey held
more unfavorable opinions of Muslims in the United States (b ¼� .19, p < .001), France
(b ¼�15, p < .001) and Germany (b ¼�.11, p < .01). Similarly, in 2010, Republicans
were more likely than Democrats and Independents to (a) hold more unfavorable opinions
of Islam (b ¼ � .18, p < .001), (b) believe that Islam encourages violence (b ¼ � .12,
p < .001), (c) believe that Muslims do not have the same rights as other
religious groups
to build houses of worship in local communities (b ¼� .20, p < .001), and (d) oppose the
construction of the Islamic Community Center (b¼ .24, p < .001). Overall, it seems fair to
conclude that more conservative respondents in the United States, France and Germany
were more likely to hold negative attitudes toward Muslims and Islam.
However, no support was found for our second hypothesis that religiosity is associ-
ated with stronger anti-Muslim attitudes in the United States in 2008. In fact, both the
Table 1. Predictors of attitudes toward Muslims in 2008 by country (Pew Global Attitudes
Project).a
a
Question used for dependent variable: On a different topic, please tell me if you have a very favorable, some-
what favorable, somewhat unfavorable or very unfavorable opinion of Muslims? Reverse coded. Cell entries are
standardized OLS regression coefficients with standard errors in parentheses.
bp < 0.01.
cp < 0.001 (two-tailed).
dp < 0.05.
38 the International Communication Gazette 76(1)
importance of religion and religious practice were unrelated to attitudes toward Muslims
in all nations except in France, where respondents who considered religion more impor-
tant actually had slightly more positive perceptions of Muslims (b ¼ .11, p < .05).
In the next step, the analysis focuses on which other demographic factors might
explain attitudes toward Muslims in Europe and the United States. To analyze the simul-
taneous effects of respondents’ demographic characteristics in each of the five nations,
sex, age, education, marital status, employment status, political ideology and income
were regressed on attitudes toward Muslims in 2008. As Table 1 shows, age, education,
and political ideology were the strongest and most consistent predictors of attitudes
toward Muslims in most nations. While older respondents were more likely to hold more
unfavorable opinions of Muslims in the United States, France, Germany and Spain, the
same was true for conservative respondents in the United States, France and Germany.
Respondents with more education, on the other hand, were more likely to hold more
positive attitudes toward Muslims in all five
nations.
Table 1 also shows that German, French and Spanish respondents who judged the
economic situation of their country more optimistically also were more likely to have
more positive opinions of Muslims. The respondents’ personal economic situation, on
Table 2. Predictors of attitudes toward Islam, Muslims, and the Islamic community center in
2010.a
Media exposure
Attention to news about
Islamic Community Center
�.04 (.02) �.07 (.02)c �.12 (.03)b �.16 (.03)b
Incr. R-square (%) .10 .50
c
1.3
b
2.2
b
Experience with Islam
Knowledge about Islam .02 (.03) .06 (.03) �.05 (.04) .10 (.04)d
Know Muslim (1 ¼ yes) .13 (.06)b .06 (.06) .17 (.07)b .09 (.06)d
Incr. R-square (%) 1.6
b
.70
c
2.3
b
1.7
b
Total R-square (%) 11.3 9.0 9.0 16.1
N 981 981 981 981
aCell entries are standardized OLS regression coefficients with standard errors in parentheses.
bp < 0.001 (two-tailed).
cp < 0.05.
d
p < 0.01.
Ogan et al. 39
the other hand, was not associated with their attitudes toward Muslims in any of the five
nations.
Our third and final hypothesis predicts that respondents who paid more attention to
news stories about the 2010 controversy surrounding the planned Islamic Community
Center would hold stronger anti-Muslim attitudes in the United States. As Table 2 indi-
cates, this hypothesis is supported in three of four cases. Respondents who paid more
attention to the Park51 news stories not only were more likely to oppose the construction
of the Center (b ¼ �.16, p < .001), but also were more likely to oppose the idea that
Muslims should have the same rights as other religious groups to build houses of worship
and local communities (b ¼ �.07, p < .05). More attention to news about Park51 also
correlated positively with the belief that Islam encourages violence (b ¼ �.12, p <
.001). While these associations are relatively weak, they remain significant despite the
strong associations observed for control variables such as age, education and party iden-
tification. Hypothesis 3 is therefore supported.
It is also worthwhile to mention that respondents who claimed to know Muslims per-
sonally were more likely to hold positive attitudes toward Islam (b¼ .13, p < .001), think
that Islam is not a violent religion (b ¼.17, p < .001), and support the construction of the
Islamic Community Center (b ¼ .09, p < .01). A higher level of self-perceived knowl-
edge about Islam, on the other hand, only was associated with more support for the con-
struction of the Center (b ¼.10, p < .01).
Conclusions
This paper focused on the rising Islamophobic climate in both the United States and in
Europe. We explored the potentially interactive effects of religion, political ideology,
and media attention on attitudes toward Muslims. Though ideally our data would have
been collected over time with comparative measures, this was not possible. The Pew
studies’ use in the testing of our research questions and hypotheses served as the next
best source of data, however.
Our findings indicate that negative attitudes toward Muslims and Islam are most
strongly and consistently associated with political conservatism on both sides of the
Atlantic. Politically conservatives in the United States, France, Germany and Spain
generally saw Muslims in a more negative light than liberals—an indication that percep-
tions of Muslims are connected to political views in most of the here analyzed nations.
Following Putnam and Campbell (2010), we also thought that the connection between
religiosity and political affiliation would be supported among American respondents in
this study—but that was not the case. Perhaps it is too soon for an anti-Muslim stance to
be adopted as a core issue for religious conservatives. Our findings also show that per-
ceptions of Muslims and Islam are likely independent from religious beliefs and instead
are driven much more by political viewpoints.
In all countries of the study, higher levels of education and actual contact with mem-
bers of the Islamic faith correlate with more positive attitudes toward these people, a
finding that matches results in previous studies (Ata et al., 2009; McClaren, 2003). This
might indicate that policies directed toward increased education and social contact
between majority populations and Muslim minorities could lead to holding more positive
40 the International Communication Gazette 76(1)
attitudes. We also found that older people were more likely to hold negative opinions in
all countries, so increased education among older citizens and the airing of positive
media stories about Muslims could contribute to changed attitudes toward Muslims in
this group. Because older people tend to consume more news than younger audiences,
positive media coverage might exert a positive influence especially among this group.
As predicted, our analysis found support for the hypothesis that media exposure to
Muslim-related issues might have an impact on attitudes toward Muslims and Islam in
general. Our analysis shows that U.S. respondents who paid more attention to media
coverage of the Park51 issue were less likely to support the building of an Islamic Com-
munity Center in New York City, more likely to think that Islam is a religion of violence,
and that Muslims should not have the same rights as other religious groups.
Since being Republican was also a predictor of these attitudes, we believe that respon-
dents were more likely to be exposed to conservative media where stories about the Cen-
ter were framed in a negative light. However, the fact that media coverage of the Islamic
Community Center was predominantly negative means that no matter which news stories
Americans consumed, they might come away with negative attitudes about Islam or
Muslims. While providing fair and balanced coverage remains a guiding principle of
U.S. journalism, on this issue, the U.S. media were clearly unbalanced. As a conse-
quence, the U.S. media might have contributed to more negative perceptions of Muslims
and Islam among American audiences in 2010.
While our research findings provide a detailed examination of American and
European attitudes toward Muslims, media coverage of Muslims, and the Islamic Com-
munity Center, there are several limitations. One is our inability to predict the same pat-
terns in the findings beyond the five countries we chose for this study. The choice was
based on recent events that put Islam and Muslims at the forefront of public debate in the
selected European countries and the United States, among which was the Islamic Com-
munity Center in New York City. Also, the large number of Muslims living in the United
Sates, France, Germany, Great Britain and Spain (Pew, 2010c) made these five countries
a research priority.
Another limitation stems from our use of the secondary survey data. As mentioned
earlier, not all measures are identical in the 2008 and 2010 data to test the hypothesized
relationships. However, the two surveys were conducted by the same research company
and share a set of similar questions across nations and time.
Also, we have failed to mention the role of gender in this study so far. Though being
female was not an across-the-board predictor of positive attitudes toward Muslims, in the
2008 study, that was the case in 2008 in the United States (b ¼.13, p < .01) and Great
Britain (b ¼.11, p <.01). And in 2010, being female was a predictor of the attitude that
Islam does not encourage violence in its religious teachings (b ¼.14, p < .001). This is in
line with past research that’s shown women tend to hold less prejudiced attitudes toward
minorities than men (Bierly 1985; Dustmann and Preston 2001). Thus, exploring the role
of gender in perceptions of Muslims could prove to be a fruitful line of inquiry in future
studies.
According to Putnam and Campbell (2010), the key to reducing hatred against
Muslims may come through more inter-religious contact. Their study of religion and pol-
itics in the United States showed that the most negatively perceived religious groups, of
Ogan et al. 41
which Muslims were one, are concentrated in particular geographic areas and this limits
contact with people from other religions. ‘‘We would expect their image problem to
disappear even more rapidly as more and more Americans count a Buddhist, a Muslim,
or a Mormon among their friends and family,’’ the authors conclude (p. 534).
We believe that is also true of Europeans, and that Islamophobia only will decline
when people choose to challenge their assumptions about the nature of Muslims and the
Islamic religion. It appears from some scholars’ analysis of the problem, however, that
Muslims have been racialized (Meer and Modood, 2010; Yilmaz, 2011). Though this
may not be a new way to view the problem (Said, 1995), it does make it more difficult
to address when Muslims are ascribed with not only a religious, but also a racial iden-
tity—the ‘‘other’’ in terms of their religious and cultural views and practices—but also
in terms of a racial category. Since such views are not openly admitted in the media or
elsewhere, deconstructing and then exposing the roots of Islamophobic ideas will not be
easy.
Notes
1. United States: 1000 respondents, conducted April 9–17, 2008; Britain: 753 respondents,
conducted 17 March–6 April 2008; France: 754 respondents, conducted 31 March–8 April
conducted 17 March–17 April 2008. All five surveys are based on national, representative sam-
ples interviewed by telephone. Muslim respondents were excluded from the analysis (France
23, Great Britain 15, Germany N ¼ 18, Spain N ¼ 1, USA N ¼ 2).
2. Perception of economy (overall and personal): ‘‘Now thinking about our economic situation,
how would you describe the current economic situation in (survey country)?’’ Coded as:
1 ¼ very bad, 2 ¼ somewhat bad, 3 ¼ somewhat good, 4 ¼ very good; ‘‘Now thinking about
your personal economic situation, how would you describe it? Coded as: 1 ¼ very bad, 2 ¼
somewhat bad, 3 ¼ somewhat good, 4 ¼ very good); Intensity of religious practice: ‘‘Outside
of attending religious services, do you pray several times a day, once a day, a few times a week,
once a week or less, or never?’’ Coded as: 1 ¼ never, 2 ¼ once a week, 3 ¼ a few times a week,
4 ¼ once a day, 5 ¼ several times a day; ‘‘How important is religion in your life? Coded as;
1 ¼ not important at all, 2 ¼ not too important, 3 ¼ somewhat important, 4 ¼ very important;
Education: ‘‘What is the highest level of education that you have completed?’’ Employment
status: ‘‘What is your current employment situation?’’ Income: ‘‘Here is a list of incomes.
Which of these does your household fall into counting all wages, salaries, pensions and other
incomes that come in?’’ Political ideology: ‘‘Some people talk about politics in terms of left,
center and right. On a six-point left-right scale, with 1 indicating extreme left and 6 indicating
extreme right, where would you place yourself?’’
3. News attention: ‘‘Please tell me if you happened to follow each news story very closely, fairly
closely, not too closely, or not at all closely – The planned building of an Islamic cultural center
and mosque in downtown New York City.’’ Coded as: 1 ¼ not closely at all, 2 ¼ not too closely,
3 ¼ fairly closely, 4 ¼ very closely’ Knowledge about Islam: ‘‘How much would you say you
know about the Muslim religion and its practices?’’ Coded as: 1 ¼ nothing at all, 2 ¼ not very
much, 3 ¼ some, 4 ¼ a great deal; Opinions about Muslims: ‘‘Would you say you have a gen-
erally favorable or unfavorable opinion of Islam?’’ Coded as: 1 ¼ unfavorable, 2 ¼ don’t know,
3 ¼ favorable; Know Muslims: ‘‘Do you, yourself happen to know anyone who is Muslim?’’
42 the International Communication Gazette 76(1)
Coded as 1 ¼ yes, 0 ¼ no; Attitudes toward Islam: ‘‘Which statement is closer to your views
even if neither is exactly right? The Islamic religion is more likely than others to encourage
violence among its believers [or] the Islamic religion does not encourage violence more than
others, neither.’’ Coded as: 1 ¼ Islamic religion is encouraging violence, 2 ¼ don’t know, 3
¼ Islamic religion does not encourage violence; Attitudes toward Park51: ‘‘As you may
know, there is a proposal to build an Islamic cultural center and mosque in downtown New
York City . . . from what you’ve read and heard, do you agree more with: those who object
to the building of the Center [or] those who think the Center should be allowed to be built?’’
Coded as: 1 ¼ agree with those who object, 2 ¼ don’t know, 3 ¼ those who think it should
be allowed to be built; ‘‘Which comes closer to your view, even if neither is exactly right? Local
communities should be able to prohibit the construction of mosques in the area if they don’t
want them [or] Muslims should have the same rights as other religious groups to build houses
of worship in local communities?’’ Coded as: 1 ¼ local communities should be able to prohibit,
2 ¼ don’t know, 3 ¼ Muslims should have the same rights.
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9/11, spectacles of terror, and media manipulation
A critique of Jihadist and Bush media
politics
Douglas Kellner
To cite this article: Douglas Kellner (2004) 9/11, spectacles of terror, and media manipulation,
Critical Discourse Studies, 1:1, 41-64, DOI: 10.1080/17405900410001674515
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/17405900410001674515
The September 11 attacks on the US dramatized the relationship between media specta-
cles of terror and the strategy of Islamic Jihadism that employs violent media events to
promote its agenda. But US administrations have also used spectacles of terror to promote
US military power and geopolitical ends, as is evident in the Gulf war of 1990–1991,
the Afghanistan war of fall 2001, and the Iraq war of 2003. In this paper I argue that
both Islamic Jihadists and two Bush administrations have deployed spectacles of terror to
promote their political agendas; that both deploy Manichean discourses of good and evil
which themselves fit into dominant media codes of popular culture; and that both deploy
fundamentalist and absolutist discourses. Criticizing the role of the US broadcasting
media in presenting the September 11 terror spectacle and subsequent Bush Terror
War, I argue against both Islamic terrorism and US militarism, and call for multilateral
and global responses to terrorism and rogue regimes. I also argue that the Internet is the
best source of information concerning complex events like Terror War, while mainstream
US corporate media, especially broadcasting, have become instruments of propaganda for
the Bush administration and Pentagon during spectacles of terrorism and war. Finally, I
suggest limitations to the politics of the spectacle and argue that the record of the spec-
tacles of Terror War in recent years discloses highly ambiguous, unpredictable, and
negative political effects.
Keywords media spectacle; terrorism; Afghanistan; Iraq; Gulf war;
George W. Bush; Osama bin Laden; Internet
The September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and on the
Pentagon near Washington, DC were shocking global media events that dominated
public attention and provoked reams of discourse, reflection, and writing. These
media spectacles were intended to terrorize the US, to attack symbolic targets,
and to unfold a terror spectacle Jihad against the West, as well as to undermine
the US and global economy. The World Trade Center is an apt symbol of global
capitalism in the heart of the New York financial district, while the Pentagon
stands as an icon and center of US military power. In this study, I suggest how
Critical Discourse Studies Vol. 1, No. 1 April 2004, pp. 41–64
ISSN 1740-5904 print/ISSN 1740-5912 online # 2004 Taylor & Francis Ltd
Osama bin Laden and various groups denominated al Qaeda have used spectacles of
terror to promote their agenda in a media-saturated era and how two Bush adminis-
trations have also deployed terror spectacle to promote their geo-political ends.1
Terror spectacle
The term “terrorism” is one of the most overloaded and contested terms in contem-
porary political vocabulary.2 First used to describe the “reign of terror” following the
radical phase of the French Revolution, the term was used in the nineteenth century to
describe the violent activities of Russian revolutionaries. By the late 1960s, the Nixon
administration was using the term “terrorism” to describe a wide range of activities
and groups. It established a Cabinet Committee to Combat Terrorism in 1972 and
subsequent US administrations continued to develop agencies and task forces to fight
terrorism, which became a widespread designation to label groups that the US
government or its allies were fighting. But during this era, the US was also widely
accused of crimes against civilians in Vietnam and elsewhere, as well as using violence
to intervene in other countries’ politics, so the term “state terrorism” began to
emerge, a term also frequently applied to Israel (Herman, 1998).
Hence, terrorism was highly constructed and contested with one group’s
“terrorists” another group’s “freedom fighters.” Varied political groups labeled
as terrorists have long constructed media spectacles of terror to promote their
causes, attack their adversaries, and gain worldwide publicity and attention. There
had been many major terror spectacles before, both in the US and elsewhere.
Hijacking of airplanes had been a standard form constructing spectacles of terror,
but the ante was significantly upped in 1970, when the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine hijacked three Western jetliners. The group forced the
planes to land in the Jordanian desert, and then blew up the planes in an incident
known as “Black September” which was the topic of a Hollywood film. In 1972,
Palestinian gunmen from the same movement stunned the world when they took
Israeli athletes hostage at the Munich Olympic Games, producing another media
spectacle turned into an academy award-winning documentary film.
In 1975, an OPEC (Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries) meeting
was disrupted in Vienna, Austria when a terrorist group led by the notorious
Carlos the Jackal entered, killing three people and wounding several in a chaotic
shootout. Americans were targeted in a 1983 terror campaign in Beruit Lebanon
orchestrated by a Shiite Muslim suicide bomber, in which 243 US servicemen
were killed; this led the US to withdraw its troops from Lebanon. In 1985, US
tourists were victims of Palestinians who seized the cruise ship Achilles Lauro,
when Leon Klinghoffer, 69, a crippled Jewish American, was killed and his body
and wheelchair were thrown overboard.
In 1993, the World Trade Center was assaulted in New York by Islamist radicals
linked to Osama bin Laden, providing a preview of the more spectacular September
11 attack. In 1995, an American-born terrorist, Timothy McVeigh, bombed the
Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 and wounding
more than 500. And the bin Laden group assaulted US embassies in Africa in 1998
and a US destroyer harbored in Yemen in 2000. Consequently, terror spectacle is
4 2 C R I T I C A L D I S C O U R S E S T U D I E S
a crucial part of the deadly game of contemporary politics and the bin Laden group
had systematically used spectacle of terror to promote its agenda. But the 9/11
terror spectacle was the most extravagant strike on US targets in its history and
the first foreign attack on the continental US since the war of 1812.
In a global media world, extravagant terror spectacles have been orchestrated in
part to gain worldwide attention, dramatize the issues of the groups involved, and
achieve specific political objectives. Previous Al Qaeda strikes against the US hit a
range of targets to try to demonstrate that the US was vulnerable to terrorist
attacks. The earlier 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York, the
embassy assaults in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and the strike on the USS Cole
in 2000 combined surprise with detailed planning and coordination in well-
orchestrated, high concept terror spectacle.3
Spectacles of terror thus use dramatic images and montage to catch attention,
hoping thereby to catalyze unanticipated events that will spread further terror
through domestic populations. The September 11 terror spectacle looked like a
disaster film, leading Hollywood director Robert Altman to chide his industry for
producing extravaganzas of terror that could serve as models for spectacular terror
campaigns. Was Independence Day (1996) – in which Los Angeles and New York
were attacked by aliens and the White House was destroyed – the template for
9/11? The collapse of the World Trade Center indeed had resonances of The Towering
Inferno (1975), which depicted a high-rise building catching fire, burning and
collapsing, or even Earthquake (1975) that depicted the collapse of entire urban
environments. For these two Hollywood disaster films, however, the calamity
emerged from within the system in the case of the first, and from nature itself in
the second. In the September 11 terror spectacle, by contrast, the villains were
foreign terrorists obviously committed to wreaking maximum destruction on the
US and it was not certain how the drama would end or if order would be restored
in a “happy ending.”
The novelty of the September 11 terror spectacle resulted from the combination
of airplane hijacking and the use of airplanes to crash into buildings and destabilize
urban and economic life. The targets were symbolic, representing global capital
and American military power, yet had material effects, disrupting the airline
industry, the businesses centered in downtown New York, and the global
economy itself through the closure of the US and other stock markets and subsequent
downturns in the world’s markets. Indeed, as a response to the drama of the terror
spectacle, an unparalleled shutdown occurred in New York, Washington, and other
major cities throughout the US, with government and businesses closing up for
the day and the airline system canceling all flights. Wall Street and the stock
market were shut down for days, baseball and entertainment events were postponed,
Disneyland and Disneyworld were closed, McDonald’s locked up its regional offices,
and most major US cities became eerily quiet.
Post 9/11 media spectacle
The 9/11 terror spectacle unfolded in a city that was one of the most media-saturated
in the world and that played out a deadly drama live on television. The images of
S P E C T A C L E S O F T E R R O R 4 3
the planes hitting the World Trade Center towers and their collapse were broadcast
repeatedly, as if repetition were necessary to master a highly traumatic event. The
spectacle conveyed the message that the US was vulnerable to terror attack, that ter-
rorists could create great harm, and that anyone at any time could be subject to a
deadly terror attack, even in Fortress America. The suffering, fear, and death that
many people endure on a daily basis in violent and insecure situations in other
parts of the world was brought home to US citizens. Suddenly, the vulnerability
and anxiety suffered by many people throughout the world was also experienced
deeply by US citizens, in some cases for the first time. The terror attacks thus had
material effects, attempting to harm the US and global economy, and psychic
effects, traumatizing a nation with fear. The spectacle of terror was broadcast
throughout the global village, with the whole world watching the assault on the
US and New York’s attempts to cope with the attacks.4
The live television broadcasting brought a “you are there” drama to the
September 11 spectacle. The images of the planes striking the World Trade
Center, the buildings bursting into flames, individuals jumping out of the window
in a desperate attempt to survive the inferno, the collapse of the towers and sub-
sequent chaos provided unforgettable images that viewers would not soon forget.
The drama continued throughout the day with survivors being pulled from the
rubble, and the poignant search for individuals still alive and attempts to deal with
the attack produced resonant iconic images seared deeply into spectators’ memories.
Many people who witnessed the event suffered nightmares and psychological trauma.
For those who viewed it intensely, the spectacle provided a powerful set of images
that would continue to resonate for years to come, much as the footage of the
Kennedy assassination, iconic photographs of Vietnam, the 1986 explosion of the
space shuttle Challenger, or the death of Princess Diana in the 1990s provided unfor-
gettable imagery.
The September 11 terror attacks in New York were claimed to be “the most
documented event in history” in a May 2002 HBO film In Memoriam which itself
provided a collage of images assembled from professional news crews, documentary
filmmakers, and amateur videographers and photographers who in some cases risked
their lives to document the event. As with other major media spectacles, the
September 11 terror spectacle took over TV programming for the next three days
without commercial break as the major television networks focused on the attack
and its aftermath.5
There followed a media spectacle of the highest order. For several days, US
television suspended broadcasting of advertising and TV entertainment and focused
solely on the momentous events of September 11. In the following analysis, I want
to suggest how the images and discourses of the US television networks framed
the 9/11 attacks to whip up war hysteria, while failing to provide a coherent
account of what happened, why it happened, and what would count as responsible
responses. In an analysis of the dominant discourses, frames, and representations
that informed the media and public debate in the days following the September 11
attacks, I will show how the mainstream media in the US privileged the “clash of
civilizations” model, established a binary dualism between Islamic terrorism and
civilization, and largely circulated war fever and retaliatory feelings and discourses
that called for and supported a form of military intervention. I argue that such
4 4 C R I T I C A L D I S C O U R S E S T U D I E S
one-dimensional militarism could arguably make the current crisis worse, rather
than providing solutions to the problem of global terrorism. Thus, while the
media in a democracy should critically debate urgent questions facing the nation,
in the terror crisis the mainstream US corporate media, especially television, pro-
moted war fever and military solutions to the problem of global terrorism.
On the day of the strikes on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the networks
brought out an array of national security intellectuals, usually ranging from the right
to the far right, to explain the horrific events of September 11. The Fox Network
presented former UN ambassador and Reagan administration apologist Jeane
Kirkpatrick, who rolled out a simplified version of Huntington’s (1996) clash of
civilizations, arguing that we were at war with Islam and should defend the West.6
Kirkpatrick was the most discredited intellectual of her generation, legitimating
Reagan administration alliances with unsavory fascists and terrorists as necessary
to beat Soviet totalitarianism. Her 1980s propaganda line was premised on a distinc-
tion between fascism and communist totalitarianism which argued that alliances
with authoritarian or rightwing terrorist organizations or states were defensible
since these regimes were open to reform efforts or historically undermined them-
selves and disappeared. Soviet totalitarianism, by contrast, should be resolutely
opposed since a communist regime had never collapsed or been overthrown, and
communism was an intractable and dangerous foe which must be fought to the
death with any means necessary. Of course, the Soviet Union collapsed in the
early 1990s, along with its empire, and although Kirkpatrick was totally discredited
she was awarded a professorship at Georgetown and continued to circulate her
crackpot views through Fox TV and other rightwing venues.
On the afternoon of September 11, Ariel Sharon, leader of Israel, himself
implicated in war crimes in Saba and Shatila in Lebanon in 1982, appeared on tele-
vision to convey his regret, condolences, and assurance of Israel’s support in the war
on terror. Sharon called for a coalition against terrorist networks, which would con-
trast the civilized world with terrorism, representing good versus evil, “humanity”
versus “the blood-thirsty,” “the free world” against “the forces of darkness,” which
are trying to destroy “freedom” and our “way of life.”
Curiously, the Bush administration would take up the same tropes with Bush
attacking the “evil” of the terrorists, using the word five times in his first statement
on the September 11 terror assaults, and repeatedly portraying the conflict as a war
between good and evil in which the US was going to “eradicate evil from the world,”
“to smoke out and pursue . . . evil doers, those barbaric people.” The semantically
insensitive and dyslexic Bush administration also used cowboy metaphors, calling
for bin Laden “dead or alive,” and described the campaign as a “crusade,” until
he was advised that this term carried offensive historical baggage of earlier wars of
Christians and Moslems. And the Pentagon at first named the war against terror
“Operation Infinite Justice,” until they were advised that only God could dispense
infinite justice, and that Americans and others might be troubled about a war
expanding to infinity.
Disturbingly, in outlining the goals of the war, Bush never mentioned democ-
racy, and the new name for the war on terrorism became “Operation Enduring
Freedom.” The Bush administration mantra repeated constantly that the war
against terrorism was being fought for “freedom.” But the history of political
S P E C T A C L E S O F T E R R O R 4 5
theory suggests that freedom must be paired with equality, or concepts like justice,
rights, or democracy, to provide adequate political theory and legitimation for
political action. It is precisely the contempt for democracy and national self-
determination that has characterized US foreign policy in the Middle East for the
past decades, which is a prime reason why groups and individuals in the area passio-
nately hate the US.
In their discourse-historical analysis of “calls to arms” speeches that compares
orations by Bush after September 11 with Pope Urban II, Queen Elizabeth I, and
Adolf Hitler, Graham, Keenan, and Dowd (forthcoming) identify generic features
in such speeches, including: an appeal to a legitimate power source external to
the speaker; an appeal to the importance of the national culture under attack; the
construction of an evil enemy; and an appeal for unification. Illustrating Bush’s
appeal to support his war on terror, the authors cite a speech the president made
five days after the 9/11 attacks:
We’re a great nation. We’re a nation of resolve. We’re a nation that can’t be
cowed by evil-doers. I’ve got great faith in the American people. If the American
people had seen what I had seen in New York City, you’d have great faith, too.
You’d have faith in the hard work of the rescuers; you’d have great faith because
of the desire for people to do what’s right for America; you’d have great faith
because of the compassion and love that our fellow Americans are showing
each other in times of need.
Graham, Keenan, and Dowd note how Bush merges the “great nation,”
“resolve,” faith, justice and love in his talk to appeal to common values and to
unite the nation. His use of “we,” “I,” and “you” serves as a rhetorical device to
bind himself with the country. It should also be noted that Bush points to the
sight of the September 11 destruction in making his case (“If the American people
had seen what I had seen in New York City”). Indeed, the images of the destruction
of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were an iconic part of the mediascape at
the time, that Bush and his administration constantly referred to (and continue to do
so as he gears up for re-election).
Bush also notoriously uses Manichean discourse to construct the “evil Other”
who attacked the US and to highlight the goodness of the US against the evil of
terrorism, using completely binary discourse. In his speech to Congress on
September 20 declaring his war against terrorism, Bush described the conflict as a
war between freedom and fear, between “those governed by fear” who “want to
destroy our wealth and freedoms,” and those on the side of freedom. Up to the
present, Bush continued to use the word “freedom” to describe both what he was
fighting for and what the terrorists were opposing. Yet freedom for Bush has
usually signaled the capacity to say and do anything he wanted to, in a lifetime of
deregulating the economy, favoring his corporate supporters, and participating in
dubious political and economic activities. The “Bush doctrine” in foreign policy
has signified freedom for the US to wage preemptive strikes anywhere it wishes at
any time, and the unilateralist Bush administration foreign policy has signified
freedom from major global treaties ranging from Kyoto to every conceivable inter-
national effort to regulate arms and military activity (Kellner, 2001, 2003).
4 6 C R I T I C A L D I S C O U R S E S T U D I E S
And while Bush ascribed fear to his symbolic Other and enemy, as Michael
Moore’s 2001 film Bowling for Columbine demonstrates, the US corporate media
have been exploiting fear for decades in their excessive presentation of murder
and violence and dramatization of a wide range of threats from within everyday
life and from foreign enemies. Clearly, the media and the Bush administration
whipped up fear and panic in their post-9/11 coverage of anthrax attacks and
frequent reports of terrorist threats. Moreover, since the September 11 strikes,
the Bush administration has arguably used fear tactics to advance its political
agenda (including tax breaks for the rich, curtailment of social programs, military
build-up, the most draconian assaults on US rights and freedoms in the contemporary
era in the so-called USA Patriot Act, and a highly controversial and divisive March
2003 war on Iraq).
In his September 20 talk to Congress, Bush drew a line between those who sup-
ported terrorism and those who were ready to fight it. Stating, “You’re either with
us, or against us,” Bush declared war on any states supporting terrorism and laid
down a series of non-negotiable demands to the Taliban who ruled Afghanistan,
while Congress wildly applauded. Bush’s popularity soared in a country craving
blood-revenge and the head of Osama bin Laden. Moreover, Bush also asserted
that his administration held accountable those nations who supported terrorism –
a position that could nurture and legitimate military interventions for years to come.
Interestingly, Bush administration discourses, like those of bin Laden and radical
Islamists, are fundamentally Manichean, positing a binary opposition between good
and evil, us and them, civilization and barbarism. Bush’s Manichean dualism repli-
cates as well the friend/enemy opposition of Carl Schmidt upon which Nazi politics
were based. Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and “the terrorist” provided the face of an
enemy to replace the “evil Empire” of Soviet Communism, which was the face of the
Other in the Cold War. The terrorist Other, however, does not reside in a specific
country with particular military targets and forces, but is part of an invisible empire
supported by a multiplicity of groups and states. This amorphous terrorist enemy,
then, allows the crusader for good to attack any country or group that is supporting
terrorism, thus promoting a foundation for a new doctrine of preemptive strikes and
perennial war.
The discourse of good and evil can be appropriated by disparate and opposing
groups and generates a highly dichotomous opposition, undermining democratic
communication and consensus and provoking violent militaristic responses. It is
assumed by both sides that “we” are the good, and the “Other” is wicked, an asser-
tion that Bush made in his incessant assurance that the “evil-doers” of the “evil
deeds” will be punished, and that the “evil one” will be brought to justice,
implicitly equating bin Laden with Satan himself.
Such hyperbolic rhetoric is a salient example of Bushspeak that communicates
through codes to specific audiences, in this case the domestic Christian rightwing
groups that are Bush’s preferred listeners.7 But demonizing terms for bin Laden
both elevate his status in the Arab world as a superhero who stands up to the
West, and angers those who feel such discourse is insulting. Moreover, the
trouble with the discourse of evil is that it is totalizing and absolutistic, allowing
no ambiguities or contradictions. It assumes a binary logic where “we” are
the forces of goodness and “they” are the forces of darkness. Such discourse
S P E C T A C L E S O F T E R R O R 4 7
legitimates any action undertaken in the name of good, no matter how destructive,
on the grounds that it is attacking evil. The discourse of evil is also cosmological
and apocalyptic, evoking a cataclysmic war with cosmic stakes. On this perspec-
tive, evil cannot be just attacked one piece at a time, through incremental steps,
but it must be totally defeated, eradicated from the earth if good is to reign.
This discourse of evil raises the stakes and violence of conflict and nurtures
more apocalyptic and catastrophic politics, fuelling future cycles of hatred,
violence, and wars.
Furthermore, the Bushspeak dualisms between fear and freedom, barbarism and
civilization and the like can hardly be sustained in empirical and theoretical analysis
of the contemporary moment. In fact, there is much fear and poverty in “our”
world and wealth, and freedom and security in the Arab and Islamic worlds – at
least for privileged elites. No doubt freedom, fear, and wealth are distributed in
both worlds so to polarize these categories and to make them the legitimating prin-
ciples of war is highly irresponsible. And associating oneself with good, while
making one’s enemy evil, is another exercise in binary reductionism and projection
of all traits of aggression and wickedness onto the other while constituting oneself as
good and pure.
Of course, theocratic Islamic fundamentalists themselves engage in similar sim-
plistic binary discourse and projection of evil onto the other to legitimate acts of ter-
rorism. For certain Manichean Islamic fundamentalists, the US is evil, the source of
all the world’s problems and deserves to be destroyed. Such one-dimensional thought
does not distinguish between US policies, leaders, institutions, or people, while
advocating a Jihad, or holy war against the American monolithic evil. The terrorist
crimes of September 11 appeared to be part of this Jihad and the monstrousness of
killing innocent civilians shows the horrific consequences of totally dehumanizing
an enemy deemed so evil that even innocent members of the group in question
deserve to be exterminated.
Many commentators on US television offered similarly one-sided and Manichean
accounts of the cause of the September 11 events, blaming their favorite opponents in
the current US political spectrum as the source of the terror assaults. For fundamen-
talist Christian ideologue Jerry Falwell, and with the verbal agreement of Christian
Broadcast Network president Pat Robertson, the culpability for this “horror beyond
words” fell on liberals, feminists, gays and the ACLU. Jerry Falwell said and Pat
Robertson agreed:
The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be
mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God
mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and
the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative
lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way – all of them who have
tried to secularize America – I point the finger in their face and say, “You
helped this happen.”
In fact, this argument is similar to a rightwing Islamic claim that the US is
fundamentally corrupt and evil and thus deserves God’s wrath – an argument
made by Falwell critics that forced the fundamentalist fanatic to apologize.
4 8 C R I T I C A L D I S C O U R S E S T U D I E S
For rightwingers like Gary Aldrich, the president and founder of the Patrick
Henry Center, it was the liberals who were at fault:
Excuse me if I absent myself from the national political group-hug that’s going
on. You see, I believe the liberals are largely responsible for much of what
happened Tuesday, and may God forgive them. These people exist in a world
that lies beyond the normal standards of decency and civility.
Other rightists, like Rush Limbaugh, argued incessantly that it was all Bill
Clinton’s fault, and election-thief manager James Baker (Kellner, 2001) blamed the
catastrophe on the 1976 Church report that put limits on the CIA.
On the issue of what to do, rightwing columnist Ann Coulter declaimed: “We
know who the homicidal maniacs are. They are the ones cheering and dancing right
now. We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to
Christianity.”8 While Bush was declaring a crusade against terrorism and the
Pentagon was organizing Operation Infinite Justice, Bush administration deputy
defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz said the administration’s retaliation would be
“sustained and broad and effective” and that the US “will use all our resources. It’s
notjustsimplya matterof capturingpeopleandholdingthem accountable,butremoving
the sanctuaries, removing the support systems, ending states who sponsor terrorism.”
Such all-out war hysteria and militarism was the order of the day, and throughout
September 11 and its aftermath ideological warhorses like William Bennett came out
and urged that the US declare war on Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, and whoever else
harbored terrorists. On the Canadian Broadcasting Network, former Reagan
administration deputy secretary of defense and military commentator Frank Gaffney
suggested that the US needed to go after the sponsors of these states as well, such as
China and Russia, to the astonishment and derision of the Canadian audience. And
rightwing talk radio and the Internet buzzed with talk of dropping nuclear bombs
on Afghanistan, exterminating all Moslems, and whatever other fantasy popped
into their unhinged heads.
Hence, broadcast television allowed dangerous and extremist zealots to vent and
circulate the most aggressive, fanatic, and sometimes lunatic views, creating a con-
sensus around the need for immediate military action and all-out war. The television
networks themselves featured logos such as “War on America,” “America’s New
War,” and other inflammatory slogans that assumed that the US was at war and
that only a military response was appropriate. Few cooler heads appeared on any of
the major television networks, which repeatedly beat the war drums day after day,
without even the relief of commercials for three days straight, driving the country
into hysteria and making it certain that there would be a military response and war.
Radio was even more frightening. Not surprisingly, talk radio oozed hatred and
hysteria, calling for violence against Arabs and Muslims, nuclear retaliation, and
global war. As the days went by, even mainstream radio news became hyperdramatic,
replete with music, patriotic gore, and wall-to-wall terror hysteria and war pro-
paganda. National Public Radio, Pacifica, and some programs attempted rational
discussion and debate, but on the whole talk radio was all propaganda, all the time.
There is no question concerning the depth of emotion and horror with which the
US experienced its first serious assault “at home” by its enemies. The constant
S P E C T A C L E S O F T E R R O R 4 9
analogies to Pearl Harbor inevitably elicited a need to strike back and prepare for
war. The strike on the World Trade Center and New York City evoked images of
assault on the very body of the country, while the attack on the Pentagon represented
a strike on the country’s defense system, showing the vulnerability, previously
unperceived, of the US to deadly acts of violence and terrorism.
The network anchors as well as political commentators framed the event as a mili-
tary attack, with Peter Jennings of ABC stating, “The response is going to have to be
massive if it is to be effective.” For some years, a growing number of “expert consult-
ants” were hired by the television corporations to explain complex events to the
public. The military consultants hired by the networks had close connections to the
Pentagon and usually would express the Pentagon point of view and spin of the day,
making them more propaganda conduits for the military than independent analysts.
Commentators and congressman like John McCain (R-Arz.), Henry Kissinger, James
Baker, Jeane Kirkpatrick, and other long-time advocates of the military-industrial
complex, described the attacks as an act of war on September 11 and the days follow-
ing. For hawkish pundits, the terror attacks required an immediate military response
and dramatic expansion of the US military. Many of these hawks were former govern-
ment officials, like Kissinger and Baker, who were currently tied in to the defense
industries, guaranteeing that their punditry would generate large profits for the
defense industries that they were part of. Indeed, the Bush family, James Baker and
other advocates of large-scale military retribution were connected with the Carlyle
Fund, the largest investor in military industries in the world. Dick Cheney’s
former Halliburton Corporation would benefit from military and reconstruction con-
tracts, as would the Bechtel Corporation that had connections with Donald Rumsfeld
and other major figures in the Republican party and prowar community.9
Consequently, these advocates of war would profit immensely from sustained
military activity, an embarrassment rarely mentioned on television or the main-
stream press, but that was widely discussed in alternative media and the Internet.
While many critics cautioned against calling the terror attacks “war” and called
for multilateral legal, police, and military coalitions to go after the Al Qaeda
network, rather than a primarily unilateral US military assault, such debates did
not take place in the US broadcasting media.10 Instead of reasoned debate, the TV
networks helped generate and sustain widespread public desire for military interven-
tion. After September 11, the networks played show after show detailing the harm
done to victims of the bombing, kept their cameras aimed at “ground zero” to
document the destruction and drama of discovery of dead bodies, and constructed
report after report on the evil of bin Laden and the Al Qaeda terrorists who had com-
mitted the atrocities.
The lack of debate in the US corporate broadcasting media points to an intensi-
fying crisis of democracy in the US.11 While the media are supposed to discuss issues
of public importance and present a wide range of views, during the epoch of Terror
War they have largely privileged Bush administration and Pentagon positions. Part of
the problem is that the Democratic party did not vigorously contest Bush’s positions
on terrorism and voted overwhelmingly for his authority to take whatever steps
necessary to attack terrorists, as well as supporting the so-called USA Patriot Act
(that greatly curtailed civil liberties) and his 2003 war against Iraq. Most of the
rest of the world, and significant sectors within US society – invisible on television,
5 0 C R I T I C A L D I S C O U R S E S T U D I E S
however – opposed Bush administration policy and called for more multilateral
approaches to problems such as terrorism.
From September 11 to the beginning of the US bombing of Afghanistan in
October, the US corporate media intensified war fever and there was an orgy of
patriotism such as the country had not seen since World War II. Media frames
shifted from “America Under Attack” to “America Strikes Back” and “America’s
New War” – even before any military action was undertaken, as if the media
frames were to conjure the military response that eventually followed. From
September 11 to and through the Afghan Terror War, the networks generated esca-
lating fear and hysteria demanding a military response, while the mouthpieces of the
military-industrial complex demanded military action with little serious reflection
on its consequences broadcast on the television networks. There was, by contrast,
much intelligent discussion on the Internet, showing the dangers of the take-over
of broadcasting by corporations who would profit by war and upheaval.12
Bush family media spectacles
War itself has become a media spectacle in which successive US regimes have used
military extravaganzas to promote their agendas. The Reagan administration repeat-
edly used military spectacle to deflect attention from its foreign policy and economic
problems. And two Bush administrations and the Clinton administration famously
“wagged the dog,” using military spectacle to deflect attention from embarrassing
domestic or foreign policy blunders, or in Clinton’s case, a sex scandal that threa-
tened him with impeachment (Kellner, 2003a).
The Gulf war of 1990–1991 was the major media spectacle of its era, captivating
global audiences and seeming to save the first Bush presidency, before the war’s
ambiguous outcome and a declining economy helped defeat the Bush presidential
campaign of 1992. In the summer of 1990, the elder Bush’s popularity was declining,
he had promised no new taxes and then raised taxes, and it appeared that he would
not be re-elected. Bush senior’s salvation seemed to appear in the figure of Saddam
Hussein and his August 1990 invasion of Kuwait that allowed Bush to organize a
military intervention to displace him.
Bush and the Reagan administration had supported Hussein during the Iran-Iraq
war of 1980–1988 and Bush senior continued to provide loans and programs that
enabled Hussein to build up his military during his presidency (Friedman, 1993;
Kellner, 1992). When Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, Bush mobilized an inter-
national coalition to wage war to oust the Iraqis from its neighboring oil emirate,
demonizing Hussein as “another Hitler” and a major threat to world peace and
the global economy. Bush refused serious diplomatic efforts to induce Iraq to
leave Kuwait, constantly insulting the Iraqi leader rather than pursuing diplomatic
mediation. Instead, Bush appeared to want a war to increase US power in the
region, to promote US military clout as the dominant global police force, to save
his own failing political fortunes, and to exert more US influence over oil supplies
and policies (Kellner, 1992). The televised drama of the 1991 Gulf war provided
exciting media spectacles that engrossed a global audience and seemed to ensure
Bush’s re-election (he enjoyed 90% popularity at the end of the war).
S P E C T A C L E S O F T E R R O R 5 1
After the war, in an exuberant rush of enthusiasm, Bush senior and his national
security advisor Brent Scowcroft proclaimed a “new world order” in which US
military power would be used to settle conflicts, solve problems, and assert the
US as the hegemonic force in the world. Such a dream was not (yet) to be,
however, as the Gulf war peace negotiations allowed Saddam Hussein to keep
power and the US failed to aide Shiite forces in the south and Kurds in the north
of Iraq to overthrow Hussein. Images of the slaughter of Kurds and Shiites throughout
the global media provided negative images that helped code the 1991 Gulf war as a
failure, or extremely limited success. Hence, the negative spectacle of a messy
endgame to the war and the continued reign in Iraq of Saddam Hussein, combined
with a poor economy, helped defeat the elder Bush in 1992.
At the time of the September 11 terror attacks, Bush junior faced the same
failing prospects that his father confronted in the summer of 1990. The economy
was suffering one of the worst declines in US history, and after ramming through
a rightwing agenda on behalf of the corporations that had supported his 2000 election
(Kellner, 2001), Bush lost control of the political agenda when a republican senator,
James Jeffords, defected to the Democrats in May 2001. But the September 11 terror
attacks provided an opportunity for George W. Bush to re-seize the political
initiative and to boost his popularity.
The brief war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan from early
October through December 2001 appeared to be a military victory for the US.
After a month of stalemate following ruthless US bombing, the Taliban collapsed
in the north of the country, abandoned the capital Kabul, and surrendered in its
southern strongholds (Kellner, 2003b). Yet the Afghanistan Terror War, like the
elder Bush’s Gulf war, was ambiguous in its outcome. Although the Taliban
regime which hosted Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda collapsed under US military
pressure, the top leaders and many militants of Al Qaeda and the Taliban escaped
and the country remains perilous and chaotic. Violent warlords used by the US to
fight Al Qaeda exert oppressive power and keep the country in a state of disarray,
while sympathizers of Al Qaeda and the Taliban continue to wield power and desta-
bilize the country. Because the US did not use ground troops or multilateral military
forces, the leaders of the Taliban and Al Qaeda escaped, Pakistan was allowed to send
in planes that took out hundreds of Pakistanis and numerous top Al Qaeda militants,
and Afghanistan remains a dangerous and unruly territory (Kellner, 2003b).
While the 1991 Gulf war produced spectacles of precision bombs and missiles
destroying Iraqi targets and the brief spectacle of the flight of the Iraqis from
Kuwait and the liberation of Kuwait City, the Afghanistan war was more hidden
in its unfolding and effects. Many of the images of Afghanistan that circulated
through the global media were of civilian casualties caused by US bombing; daily
pictures of thousands of war refugees and suffering Afghani people raised questions
concerning the US strategy and intervention. Moreover, just as the survival of
Saddam Hussein ultimately coded the first Gulf war as problematic, so the continued
existence of Osama bin Laden and his top Al Qaeda leadership point to the limitations
of the younger Bush’s leadership and policies.
By early 2002, George W. Bush faced a situation similar to that of his father after
the Gulf war. Despite victory against the Taliban, the limited success of the war and a
failing economy provided a situation that threatened W’s re-election. Thus Bush
5 2 C R I T I C A L D I S C O U R S E S T U D I E S
junior needed a dramatic media spectacle that would guarantee his election and once
again Saddam Hussein provided a viable candidate. Consequently, in his January 20,
2002 State of the Union address, Bush made threatening remarks about an “axis of
evil” confronting the US, including Iraq, Iran, and North Korea.
As 2002 unfolded, the Bush administration intensified its ideological war against
Iraq, advanced its doctrine of preemptive strikes, and provided military build-up for
what now looked like inevitable war against Iraq. While the explicit war aims were
to shut down Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction,” and thus enforce UN resolutions
which mandated that Iraq eliminate its offensive weapons, there were many hidden
agendas in the Bush administration offensive against Iraq. To be re-elected Bush
needed a major victory and symbolic triumph over terrorism in order to deflect
from the failings of his regime both domestically and in the realm of foreign policy.
Indeed, in the global arena, Bush appears to be the most hated US president of
modern times and anti-Americanism is on the rise throughout the world. Moreover,
ideologues within the Bush administration wanted to legitimate a policy of preemp-
tive strikes and a successful attack on Iraq could inaugurate and normalize this policy.
Some of the same militarist unilateralists in the Bush administration envisage US
world hegemony, the elder Bush’s “new world order” with the US as the reigning
military power and world’s policeman (Kellner, 2003b). Increased control of the
world’s oil supplies provided a tempting prize for the former oil executives who
maintain key roles in the Bush administration. And, finally, one might note the
Oedipus Tex drama, where George W. Bush’s desires to conclude his father’s
unfinished business and simultaneously defeat evil to constitute himself as good
helped drive him to war against Iraq with the fervor of a religious crusade.
With all these agendas in play, a war on Iraq appears to have been inevitable.
Bush’s March 6, 2003 press conference made it evident that he was ready to go to
war against Iraq. His handlers told him to speak slowly and keep his big stick and
Texas macho out of view, but he constantly threatened Iraq and evoked the rhetoric
of good and evil that he used to justify his crusade against bin Laden and Al Qaeda.
Bush repeated the words “Saddam Hussein” and “terrorism” incessantly,
mentioning Iraq as a “threat” at least sixteen times, attempting to link it with the
September 11 attacks and terrorism. He used the word “I” as in “I believe” count-
less times, and talked of “my government” as if he owned it, depicting a man lost in
words and self-importance, positioning himself against the evil that he was preparing
to wage war against. Unable to make an intelligent and objective case for a war
against Iraq, Bush could only invoke fear and a moralistic rhetoric, attempting to
present himself as a strong nationalist leader.
Bush’s rhetoric, like that of fascism, deploys a mistrust and hatred of language,
reducing it to manipulative speechifying, speaking in codes and repeating the same
phrases over and over. This is grounded in anti-intellectualism and hatred of
democracy and intellectuals. It is clearly evident in Bush’s press conferences and
snitty responses to questions and general contempt for the whole procedure. It
plays to anti-intellectual proclivities and tendencies in the extreme conservative
and fundamentalist Christian constituencies who support him. It appears that
Bush’s press conference was orchestrated to shore up his base and prepare his sup-
porters for a major political struggle rather then to marshal arguments to convince
those opposed to go to war with Iraq that it was a good idea. He displayed, against his
S P E C T A C L E S O F T E R R O R 5 3
will, the complete poverty of his case for going to war against Iraq; he had no con-
vincing arguments, nothing new to communicate, and just repeated the same tired
clichés over and over.
Bush’s discourse also displayed Orwellian features of Doublespeak where war
against Iraq is for peace, the occupation of Iraq is its liberation, destroying its
food and water supplies enables humanitarian action, and the murder of countless
Iraqis and destruction of the country will produce freedom and democracy. In a
pre-war summit with Tony Blair in the Azores and in his first talk after the
bombing began Bush went on and on about the “coalition of the willing” and how
many countries were supporting and participating in the “allied” effort. In fact,
however, it was a coalition of two, with the US and UK doing most of the fighting
and with many of the countries that Bush claimed supported his war quickly back-
tracking and expressing reservations about the highly unpopular assault that was
strongly opposed by most people and countries in the world.
On March 19, the media spectacle of the war against Iraq unfolded with a
dramatic attempt to “decapitate” the Iraqi regime. Large numbers of missiles
were aimed at targets in Baghdad where Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi leadership
were believed to be staying and the tens of thousands of ground troops on the
Kuwait-Iraq border poised for invasion entered Iraq in a blitzkrieg toward
Baghdad.13 The media followed the Bush administration and Pentagon slogan of
“shock and awe” and presented the war against Iraq as a great military spectacle,
as triumphalism marked the opening days of the US bombing of Iraq and invasion.
The Al Jazeera television network’s live coverage of the bombing of a palace
belonging to the Hussein family was indeed shocking; these loud explosions and
blasts jolted viewers throughout the world. Whereas some Western audiences
experienced this bombing positively as a powerful assault on evil, for Arab audiences
it was experienced as an attack on the body of the Arab and Muslim people, just as the
September 11 terror attacks were experienced by Americans as assaults on the very
body and symbols of the US. During the first Gulf war, CNN was the only network
live in Baghdad and throughout the war framed the images, discourses, and spectacle.
There were over twenty broadcasting networks in Baghdad for the 2003 Iraq war,
including several Arab networks, and the different TV companies presented the
war quite diversely.
Al Jazeera and other Arab networks, as well as some European networks, talked
of an invasion and an illegal US and British assault on Iraq. While US TV networks
presented a “War in Iraq” or “Operation Iraqi Freedom” as the framing concepts,
the Canadian CBC used the “War on Iraq,” and Arab and other global networks
spoke of an invasion and occupation. While Donald Rumsfeld bragged that the
bombings were the most precise in history and were aimed at military and not
civilian targets, Arab and various global broadcasting networks focused on civilian
casualties and presented painful spectacles of Iraqis suffering from the US
bombing. Moreover, to the surprise of many, after a triumphant march across the
Kuwaiti border and rush to Baghdad, the US and British forces began to take casual-
ties, and during the weekend of March 22–23 images of their PoWs and dead bodies
were shown throughout the world. Moreover, the Iraqis began angrily resisting and
rather than cheering for British and US forces to enter the southern city of Basra,
there was significant resistance throughout southern Iraq.
5 4 C R I T I C A L D I S C O U R S E S T U D I E S
Soon after, an immense sandstorm slowed down the march on Baghdad and
images of Iraqi civilians maimed or killed by US and British bombing, accounts of
mishaps, stalled and overextended supply lines, and unexpected dangers to the
invading forces created a tremendously dramatic story. The intensity and immediacy
of the spectacle was multiplied by “embedded reporters” in place in the US and
British forces who beamed back live pictures, first of the triumphant blitzkrieg
through Iraq and then of the invading forces stalling and subject to perilous
counterattack.
A great debate emerged around the embedded reporters and whether journalists
who depended on the protection of the US and British military, lived with the
troops, and signed papers agreeing to a rigorous set of restrictions on their reporting
could be objective and critical of their protectors. From the beginning, it was clear
that the embedded reporters were indeed “in bed with” their military escorts and
as the US and Britain stormed into Iraq, the reporters presented exultant and
triumphant accounts that trumped any paid propagandist. The embedded US net-
work television reporters were gung ho cheerleaders and spinners for the US and
UK military and lost all veneer of objectivity. But as the blitzkrieg stalled, a sand-
storm hit, and US and British forces came under attack, the embedded reporters
reflected genuine fear, helped capture the chaos of war, provided often vivid
accounts of the fighting and occasionally, as I note below, deflated a propaganda
lie from the US or UK military.
Indeed, US and British military discourse was exceptionally mendacious, as
happens so often in recent wars that are as much for public opinion and political
agendas as for military goals. British and US sources claimed during the first days
in Iraq that the border port of Umm Qasar and the major southern city of Basra
were under coalition control, whereas TV images showed quite the opposite.
When things went very bad for US and British forces on March 23, a story originated
from an embedded reporter with the Jerusalem Post that a “huge” chemical weapons
production facility had been found, a story allegedly confirmed by a Pentagon source
to the Fox TV military correspondent who quickly spread it through the US media
(the UK’s BBC was skeptical from the beginning).14
When US officials denied that they were responsible for major civilian atrocities
in two Baghdad bombings during the week of March 24, reporters on the scene
described witnesses to planes flying overhead and in one case found pieces of a
missile with US markings and numbers on it. And after a suicide bombing killed
four US troops at a checkpoint in late March, US soldiers fired on a vehicle that
ran a checkpoint and killed seven civilians. The US military claimed that it had
fired a warning shot, but a Washington Post journalist on the scene reported that a
senior US military official had shouted to a younger soldier to fire a warning shot
first and then yelled “You [expletive] killed them” when he failed to do so.
Embedded newspaper reporters also often provided more vivid accounts of friendly
fire and other mishaps, getting their information from troops on the ground instead
of from military spinners who tended to be propagandists.15
Hence, the embedded and other reporters on the site provided documentation
of the more raw and brutal aspects of war with telling accounts that often put
into question official versions of the events, as well as propaganda and military
spin. But since their every posting and broadcast was censored by the US military
S P E C T A C L E S O F T E R R O R 5 5
it was the independent unilateral journalists who provided the most accurate account
of the horrors of the war and the military mishaps of the coalition of two. Thus, on
the whole the embedded journalists were largely propagandists who often outdid the
Pentagon and Bush administration in spinning the message of the moment.
Moreover, the US broadcast networks tended to be more embedded in the Pen-
tagon and Bush administration than the reporters in the field and print journalists.
The military commentators on all networks provided little more than the Pentagon
spin of the moment and often repeated gross lies and propaganda, as in the examples
mentioned above concerning the US bombing of civilians or the checkpoint shooting
of innocents. Entire networks like Fox and the NBC cable networks provided little
but propaganda and one-sided patriotism, as did, for the most part, CNN. All these
24/7 cable networks, as well as the big three US broadcasting networks, tended to
provide highly sanitized views of the war, rarely showing Iraqi casualties, thus pro-
ducing a view of the war totally different to that shown in other parts of the world.
The dramatic story of “Saving Private Lynch” was one of the more spectacular
human-interest stories of the war, and revealed the constructed and spectacle nature
of the event and the ways that the Pentagon constructed mythologies that were
replicated by the TV networks. Private Jessica Lynch was one of the first American
PoWs shown on Iraqi TV and since she was young, female, and attractive, her fate
became a topic of intense interest. Stories circulated that she was shot and stabbed
and was tortured by Iraqis holding her in captivity.16 Eight days after her capture,
the US media broadcast footage of her dramatic rescue, obviously staged like a
reality TV spectacle. Soldiers stormed the hospital, found Lynch, and claimed a
dramatic rescue under fire from Iraqis. In fact, several media institutions interviewed
the doctors in the hospital who claimed that Iraqi troops had left the hospital two
days before, that the hospital staff had tried to take Jessica to the Americans but were
fired on, and that in the “rescue” the US troops shot through the doors, terrorized
doctors and patients, and created a dangerous scene that could have resulted in
deaths, simply to get some dramatic rescue footage for TV audiences.17
The Fox network was especially gung ho, militarist and aggressive, yet Fox
footage shown on April 5–6, 2003 of the daring US incursion into Baghdad displayed
a road strewn with destroyed Iraqi vehicles, burning buildings, and Iraqi corpses.
This footage, replayed for days, caught something of the carnage of the high-tech
slaughter and destruction of Iraq that the US networks tended to neglect. And an
Oliver North commentary to footage of a US warplane blasting away one Iraqi
tank and armored vehicle after another put on display the high-tech massacre of a
completely asymmetrical war in which the Iraqi military had no chance whatsoever
against the US war machine.
US military commanders claimed that in the initial foray into Baghdad 2,000–
3,000 Iraqis were killed, suggesting that the broadcasting networks were not
really showing the brutality and carnage of the war. Indeed, most of the bombing
of Iraqi military forces was invisible and dead Iraqis were rarely shown. An embedded
CNN reporter, Walter Rogers, later recounted that the one time his report showed a
dead Iraqi the CNN switchboard “lit up like a Christmas tree” with angry viewers
demanding that CNN not show any dead bodies, as if the US audience were in denial
concerning the human costs of the war.18
5 6 C R I T I C A L D I S C O U R S E S T U D I E S
An April 6 interview on Fox with Forbes magazine publisher and former presi-
dential candidate Steve Forbes made it clear that the US intended to get all the con-
tracts on rebuilding Iraq for American firms, that Iraqi debts held by French and
Russians should be cancelled, and that to the victors would go all the spoils of
war. Such discourse put on display the arrogance and greed that drove the US
effort and subverted all idealistic rhetoric about democracy and freedom for the
Iraqis. The brutality of Fox war pornography graphically displayed the horrors
of war and the militarist, gloating, and barbaric discourse that accompanied the
slaughter of Iraqis and destruction of the country showed the new barbarism that
characterized the Bush era.19
Comparing American broadcasting networks with the BBC, Canadian, and other
outlets, as I did during the opening weeks of the US war against Iraq, showed two
different wars being presented. The US networks tended to ignore Iraqi casualties,
Arab outrage about the war, global anti-war and anti-US protests, and the negative
features of the war, while the BBC and Canadian CBC often featured these more
critical themes. As noted, various countries and networks framed the war very
differently, while analysts noted that in Arab countries the war was presented as
an invasion of Iraq, slaughter of its peoples, and destruction of the country.
On the whole, US broadcasting networks tended to present a sanitized view of
the war while Canadian, British and other European and Arab broadcasting presented
copious images of civilian casualties and the horrors of war. US television coverage
tended toward pro-military patriotism, propaganda, and technological fetishism,
celebrating the weapons of war and military humanism, highlighting the achieve-
ments and heroism of the US military. Other global broadcasting networks,
however, were highly critical of the US and UK military and often presented highly
negative spectacles of the assault on Iraq and the shock and awe high-tech massacre.
In a sense, the US and UK war on Iraq found itself in a double bind. The more
thoroughly they annihilated Iraqi troops and conquered the country, the more
aggressive, bullying, and imperialist they would appear to the rest of the world. Yet
the dramatic pictures of civilian casualties and the harrowing images of US bomb-
ing and destruction of Iraq made it imperative to end the war as soon as possible. A
failed attempt to kill Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi leadership on April 7 destroyed
a civilian area and killed a number of people, followed by the killing of journalists
in two separate episodes by the US military on April 8, produced an extremely negative
media spectacle of the war on Iraq. But the apparent collapse of the Iraqi regime on
April 9, when for the first time there were significant images of Iraqis celebrating
the demise of Hussein, provided the material for a spectacle of victory.
Indeed, the destruction of a statue of Saddam Hussein on live global television
provided precisely the images desired by the Pentagon and Bush administration.
Closer analysis of this spectacle revealed, however, that rather than displaying a
mass uprising of Iraqis against the Baath regime, there were relatively few people
assaulting the Hussein statue. Analysis of the pictures in the square revealed that
there was only a relatively small crowd around the statue of Saddam Hussein
while most of the square was empty. Those attacking the statue were largely
members of the US-supported Iraqi National Congress, including associates of its
infamous leader Ahmed Chalabi and another member shown in the crowd who
attempted to pass himself off as the mayor of Baghdad, until US military forces
S P E C T A C L E S O F T E R R O R 5 7
restrained him. Moreover, the few Iraqis attacking the statue were unable to destroy
it, until some US soldiers on the scene used their tank and cable to pull it down. In a
semiotic slip, one soldier briefly put a US flag on top of Hussein’s head, providing an
iconic image for Arab networks and others of a US occupation and take-over of Iraq.
Subsequent images of looting, anarchy and chaos throughout Iraq, however,
including the looting of the National Museum, the National Archive (which con-
tained rare books and historical documents), and the Ministry for Religious Affairs
(which contained rare religious material) created extremely negative impressions.20
Likewise, growing Iraqi demonstrations over the US occupation and continued
violence throughout the country put on view a highly uncertain situation in which
the spectacle of victory and the triumph of Bush administration and Pentagon policy
might be put into question, domestically as well as globally.
For weeks after the fall of the Iraqi regime negative images continued to circulate
of clashes between Iraqis and the US forces, gigantic Shia demonstrations and
celebrations that produced the specter of growing radical Islamic power in the
region, and the continued failure to produce security and stability. The spectacle
of Shia on the march and taking over power in many regions of the country
created worries that democracy in Iraq could result in religious fundamentalist
regimes. This negative spectacle suggests the limitations of a politics of the spectacle
that can backfire, spiral out of control, and generate unintended consequences.
Attempting to counter the negative spectacle, the Bush administration
attempted on May 1 to organize a positive spectacle of Bush piloting a naval aircraft
onto the USS Abraham Lincoln. In this carefully orchestrated media event, Bush
emerged in full Top Gun regalia from a jet plane with “Navy One” and “George
W. Bush, Commander-in-Chief” logos. Strutting out of the aircraft, helmet in
hand, Bush crossed the flight deck accompanied by a cheering crowd and with full
TV coverage that had been anticipating the big event for hours. Delivering a
canned speech from a podium with a giant banner “Mission Accomplished”
behind him, Bush declared that the “major combat operations in Iraq have ended.
In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.”21
In the first Gulf war, the Iraqi flight from its occupation of Kuwait and the
apparent military defeat of the Iraqi regime was followed by images of Shiite and
Kurdish uprisings and their violent suppression by the Saddam Hussein regime,
ultimately coding the Gulf war as ambiguous and contributing to George H.W.
Bush’s defeat in 1992. Likewise, while the September 11 terror attacks on the US
by the Al Qaeda network appeared to be a triumph of the Islamic radicals, worldwide
revulsion against the attacks and the global and multilateral attempts to close down
its networks ultimately appear to have seriously weakened the Al Qaeda forces.
Politics of the spectacle are thus highly ambiguous and unstable, subject to multiple
interpretations, and generate ambiguous and often unanticipated effects, as when
Republican attempts to use Bill Clinton’s sexual escapades to promote his impeach-
ment backfired and created sympathy and support for him.
Media spectacles can backfire and are subject to dialectical reversal as positive
images give way to negative ones. They are difficult to control and manage, and
can be subject to different framings and interpretations, as when non-US broadcasting
networks focus on civilian casualties, looting and chaos, and US military crimes
against Iraqis rather than the US victory and the evils of Saddam Hussein.
5 8 C R I T I C A L D I S C O U R S E S T U D I E S
Of course, the capture of Hussein on December 15 created a major propaganda
victory for the Bush administration but it remains to be seen to what extent
Saddam’s capture will seriously curtail Iraqi resistance to the US occupation, help
provide legitimacy and support for the new Iraqi government, and help generate
the stability that has so far eluded the US and British efforts at pacification. It is
obviously too soon to determine the effects of the 2003 Iraq war, but the conse-
quences are likely to be complex and unforeseen, thus rendering claims that the
adventure represents a great victory premature and possibly quite erroneous.
Concluding comments
Obviously, multifaceted global events like the two Bush administration wars against
Iraq are highly complex and have a wealth of underlying factors. Thus it would be a
mistake to suggest that one single factor, like the control of oil or domestic political
goals, were the key motivations for either of the two wars against Iraq carried out
by Bush family administrations. Complex historical events are overdetermined and
require multicausal analyses (Kellner, 1992, 2003b).
Yet in a highly saturated media environment, successful political projects require
carefully planned and executed media spectacles. In this study, I have suggested that
both the September 11 terror attacks and the Bush family’s wars against Iraq were
prime examples of such spectacles. Both Al Qaeda terrorists and the two Bush
administrations have used media spectacles to promote their highly controversial
agendas. Hence, during an era of Terror War, politics are increasingly mediated
and constituted by the production of spectacular media events and the political
agendas of their producers.
In the US and elsewhere, the corporate media have followed the Bush adminis-
tration in demonizing bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and terrorism, while celebrating
US military interventions. A critical cultural studies, however, should dissect the
dominant discourses, images, and spectacles of all contending sides, denoting
manipulation, propaganda, and questionable policies. Throughout my recent work,
I have suggested that multilateralism is the appropriate global response to such
problems as terrorism and despotic political regimes, and that global institutions
and not the unilateralism of US militaristic intervention should be the forum for
searching out and working through the transnational problems that affect us all
(Kellner, 2003b).
In a mediated world in which only a few – and increasingly fewer – media
corporations control the broadcasting and print media, the Internet provides the
best source of alternative information. It offers a wealth of opinion and debate,
and a variety of sites that present material for a better-informed public and the
organization of political alternatives to the current US regime (Kellner, 2001,
2003b). Although there is a frightening amount of misinformation and reactionary
discourse on the Internet, it also provides users with the potential to become
literate and informed on a variety of important topics. Indeed, the Internet has
played a key role in nurturing the anti-corporate globalization and global justice
movements, and is playing an important role in facilitating the development of a
global anti-war movement.
S P E C T A C L E S O F T E R R O R 5 9
Further, the global peace movement that has been constituting itself as a coun-
terspectacle to Islamic terrorism and Bush militarism signals a democratic alternative
to war. The spectacle of millions demonstrating against an attack on Iraq in 2003,
activists going to Iraq to serve as human shields against US and British bombing,
and the daily protests erupting throughout everyday life, all present opposition to
war and struggles for peace and democracy. On the eve of Bush junior’s assault on
Iraq, a virtual protest sent millions of e-mail and telephone calls to Washington to
protest an impending Iraq attack and the unfolding of a global peace movement
numbering millions was evident. While the counterspectacle for peace was not
able to stop the Bush administration’s rush to war, it empowered countries and
global organization to oppose the war and has mobilized constituencies that may
eventually block the Bush administration’s problematic attempt at global hegemony.
It is clear that Bush administration Terror War policy envisages an era of perpetual
war against terrorism and the countries that support terror, a situation in which media
spectacle will be used to promote policies of unilateral aggression. One hopes that
counterspectacles of peace and opposition to Terror War will grow in force and
that new media like the Internet will be used as democratic tools to prevent the
unleashing of the totalizing and hegemonic political vision of “us versus them” and
“good versus evil” that the Bush administration is promoting. For such perennial
war truly portends historical regression on a frightening scale and threatens the
world with genocide and an endless spectacle of violence and destruction.22
Notes
1 This study draws upon my books: Television and the Crisis of Democracy (Kellner,
1990); The Persian Gulf TV war (Kellner, 1992); Grand Theft 2000 (Kellner,
2001); Media spectacle (Kellner, 2003a); and From 9/11 to terror war: Dangers of
the Bush legacy (Kellner, 2003b). Thanks to Phil Graham for helpful comments
that aided in the revision of the paper.
2 See Collins and Glover (2002). Collins and Glover’s collection Collateral language
interrogates many of the concepts used in post-9/11 political discourse, highlighting
the importance of language in the mobilizing of political consensus, the legitimation
of policies, and the very construction of political realities. In my study, I will inter-
rogate how both Al Qaeda and two Bush administrations have used spectacles of
terror to promote their policies and will deconstruct some of their discourse and
the ways that they were presented and circulated in the US and global media.
3 For histories of the Al Qaeda network, see Kepel (2002) and Rashid (2001, 2002).
4 In winter 2001, I attended a three-part symposium telecast live in the Beverly Hills
Museum of Radio and Television which included media executives and broadcasters
throughout the world describing how they processed the events of September 11.
Representatives from Canada, European countries, China, and elsewhere described
how they obtained footage to broadcast, how the story dominated their respective
media sources, and how the story was truly global in reach. An archive of video and
commentary on September 11 broadcasting throughout the world available at
http://www.911digitalarchive.org/ and http://tvnews3.televisionarchive.org/
tvarchive/html/index.html.
6 0 C R I T I C A L D I S C O U R S E S T U D I E S
5 In this section I am indebted to students in my UCLA Cultural Studies seminar and to
Richard Kahn who developed a website where the class posted material relating to
the September 11 events and Afghan war; the following study draws on this material
that can be found at http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/ed270/
index.html.
6 For a critique of Huntington’s civilization versus barbarism discourse see Achcar
(2002), Chomsky (2001), and Kellner (2003b).
7 For a systematic analysis of Bushspeak and its Orwellian lineage, see Kellner (2001).
8 Shortly after this and other outbursts, Coulter was fired from the National Review
when she reacted hostilely to efforts by the editors to tone down her rhetoric,
helping to provide her with martyr status for the US right. Later, Coulter
stated in a speech that American Taliban John Walker Lindh should be executed
so that liberals and the left get the message that they can be killed if they get
out of line! For a systematic critique of Coulter and other extreme right media
pundits, see Franken (2003).
9 The Bush-Baker-Carlyle connection, Cheney-Halliburton, and Rumsfeld and
Bechtel connections are documented in many English newspapers, the New York
Times, and other sources, collected on http://www.bushwatch.com and Phil
Agre’s Red Rock Eater list collected at http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/
pagre/rre.html. See also Warner (2002) and Kellner (2003b). On Bechtel,
Rumsfeld, and oil, see Lindorff (2003).
10 During the Afghanistan war, Sir Michael Howard, the eminent British historian, gave
a talk that was widely reproduced and discussed in the print media and Internet against
calling the terror attacks “war”. Howard argued that it was “a terrible and irrevoc-
able error” to refer to the current campaign against terrorism as a war, rather than a
criminal action, since it bestowed unwarranted legitimacy on the terrorists, mytho-
logized them within the Arab and Western world, and created unrealistic expec-
tations for successful military action and victory. Describing the American
bombing as “like trying to eradicate cancer cells with a blowtorch,” Howard
argued that a “police operation conducted under the auspices of the United
Nation” would have been far preferable. Howard’s speech was published on
http://www.thisislondon.com on October 31 and was widely distributed on the
Internet.
11 For my previous accounts of the media and the crisis of democracy, see Kellner
(1990, 1992, 2001, 2003b).
12 This situationcalls attention once againtothe majorcontradictionof the presentage in
regard to information and knowledge. On one hand, the US has available the most
striking array of information, opinions, debate, and sources of knowledge of any
society in history with its profusion of print journalism, books, articles, and Internet
sources, and in contrast on the other hand is the poverty of information and opinion on
television. This is truly a scandal and a contradiction in the construction of contem-
porary consciousness and political culture. Thus, while television functioned largely
as propaganda, spectacle, and the producer of mass hysteria close to brainwashing, for-
tunately there is a wealth of informed analysis and interpretation available in print
media and on the Internet, as well as a respectable archive of books and articles on
the complexity of US foreign policy and Middle East history (Kellner, 2003b).
S P E C T A C L E S O F T E R R O R 6 1
13 On May 28, 2003, CBS News reported that no bunker, bodies, or evidence of the
presence of Saddam Hussein or his family at the site bombed the opening night
of the war, had been found.
14 Soon after, British and then US military sources affirmed that the site was not a
chemical weapons production or storage facility. For a critique of a series of
“smoking gun” discoveries of weapons of mass destruction facilities and their
subsequent debunking, see Tapper (2003a, b).
15 On the Baghdad bombings see the reporting of Robert Fisk in the UK Independent
(Fisk, 2003), and for the story that questioned official US military accounts of the
checkpoint shootings of a civilian family, see Branigin (2003).
16 A Washington Post April 3 story by Susan Schmidt and Vernon Loeb headlined “She
was fighting to her death” was based on unnamed military sources and claimed that
Lynch “continued firing at the Iraqis even after she sustained multiple gunshot
wounds” and that she was stabbed by Iraqis who captured her. In fact, Lynch’s
vehicle took a wrong turn, overturned, and she was hurt in the accident not fight-
ing Iraqis. See the sources in the next note.
17 See Potter (2003); the Associated Press also confirmed this story, as did the BBC
on May 15, CBS News on May 29, and interviews with Jessica Lynch on ABC in
November 2003 as she promoted a co-authored book on her experiences.
18 Rogers was interviewed on Howard Kurtz’s poorly named CNN media review
Reliable Sources on April 27, 2003.
19 For a systematic analysis of the new barbarism accompanying and in part generated
by the Bush administration and its hardright supporters, see Kellner (2003b).
Rutenberg (2003) provides examples of Fox’s aggressively opinionated and
biased discourse, as when anchor Neil Cavuto said of those who oppose the war
on Iraq: “You were sickening then, you are sickening now.” Fox’s high ratings
during the war influenced CNN and the NBC networks to be more patriotic and
dismissive of those who criticized the war and its aftermath.
20 Evidently, the museum community thought it had an understanding with the US
military regarding the need to preserve Iraqi national treasures, which the US
military allowed to be looted and destroyed while they protected the Petroleum Min-
istry. See http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/16/international/worldspecial/
16MUSE.html?pagewanted ¼ print&position ¼ . On the looting of the Ministry
for Religious Affairs, see http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/16/international/
worldspecial/ 16BAGH.html?pagewanted ¼ print&position ¼ . Later reports indi-
cated that some of the museum artifacts believed destroyed were hidden, but there
were also reports of continued looting of Iraqi archaeological sites throughout the
country that were not protected by the US (Andrews, 2003).
21 When Bush was asked whether the mission in Iraq had indeed been accomplished as
the banner proclaimed at an October 28, 2003 press conference, he snippily remarked,
“The ‘Mission Accomplished’ sign, of course, was put up by the members of the
USS Abraham Lincoln saying that their mission was accomplished. I know it was
attributedsomehowtosomeingeniousadvancemanfromstaff.”Infact,theBushadmin-
istration had orchestrated every detail of the spectacle (Bumiller, 2003).
22 On Bush administration doctrines of perpetual war, see Vidal (2002, 2003).
6 2 C R I T I C A L D I S C O U R S E S T U D I E S
References
Achcar,G. (2002). The clash of barbarisms. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Andrews, E. L. (2003, May 23). Iraqi looters tearing up archaeological sites. New York
Times, p. 1.
Branigin, W. (2003, April 1). A gruesome scene on Highway 9. Washington Post, p. AO1.
Bumiller, E. (2003, May 16). Keepers of Bush image lift stagecraft to new heights.
New York Times.
Chomsky, N. (2001). 9–11. New York: Seven Seals Press.
Collins, J., & Glover, R. (Eds.). (2002). Collateral language. A user’s guide to America’s new
war. New York: New York University Press.
Fisk, R. (2003). Archived at http://www.ccmep.org/usbombingwatch/2003.htm.
Franken, A. (2003). Lies and the lying liars who tell them. New York: Dutton.
Friedman, A. (1993). Spider’s web. New York: Bantam Books.
Graham, P., Keenan, T., & Dowd, A. A call to arms at the end of history: A discourse-
historical analysis of George W. Bush’s declaration of war on terror. Discourse &
Society. (in press).
Herman, E. S. (1998). The real terror network: Terrorism in fact and propaganda. Boston:
South End Press.
Huntington, S. (1996). The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order.
New York: Touchstone Books.
Kellner, D. (1990). Television and the crisis of democracy. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Kellner, D. (1992). The Persian Gulf TV war. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Kellner, D. (2001). Grand theft 2000. Boulder, CO: Rowman and Littlefield.
Kellner, D. (2003a). Media spectacle. London and New York: Routledge.
Kellner, D. (2003b). From 9/11 to terror war: Dangers of the Bush legacy. Boulder, CO:
Rowman and Littlefield.
Kepel, G. (2002). Jihad. The trail of political Islam. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Lindorff, D. (2003, April 9). Secret Bechtel documents reveal: Yes, it is about oil.
Counterpunch Special Report. Retrieved April 10 2003, from http://www.counter-
punch.org/lindorff04092003.html.
Potter, M. (2003, May 5). The real ‘Saving Pte. Lynch.’ Toronto Star, p. AO1.
Rashid, A. (2001). Taliban. Militant Islam, oil and fundamentalism in central Asia. New
Haven: Yale University Press.
Rashid, A. (2002). Jihad. The rise of militant Islam in central Asia. New Haven: Yale
University Press.
Rutenberg, J. (2003, April 16). Cable’s war coverage suggests a new ‘Fox Effect’ on
television. New York Times, p. B09.
Tapper, J. (2003a, April 16). WMD, MIA? Salon. Retrieved March 15 2004, from
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/04/16/wmd/.
Tapper, J. (2003b, May 30). Angry Allies. Salon. Retrieved March 15 2004, from
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/05/30/wmd/.
Vidal, G. (2002). Perpetual war for perpetual peace: How we got to be so hated. New York:
Thunder Mouth Press/Nation Books.
Vidal, G. (2003). Dreaming war: Blood for oil and the Cheney-Bush junta. New York:
Thunder Mouth Press/Nation Books.
S P E C T A C L E S O F T E R R O R 6 3
Warner, M. (2002, March 18). The big guys work for the Carlyle group. Fortune.
Retrieved March 15 2004, from http://www.fortune.com/fortune/articles/
0,15114,370593,00.html
Douglas Kellner is George Kneller Chair in the Philosophy of Education at UCLA and is
author of many books on social theory, politics, history, and culture. His most recent
books are Media Spectacle and on September 11, Terror War, and the Dangers of the
Bush Legacy.
6 4 C R I T I C A L D I S C O U R S E S T U D I E S
Communication, Culture & Critique ISSN 1753-9129
O R I G I N A L A R T I C L E
Between Support and Confrontation:
Civic Society, Media Reform, and Populism
in Latin America
Silvio Waisbord
School of Media and Public Affairs, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052, USA
This article calls for a critical examination of the media politics of civic society in new
democracies. The analysis discusses the media policies of populist administrations and
the role of civic groups in contemporary Latin America. The analysis shows the complex
relations between civic actors and governments in processes of media reform. Contra visions
that approach civic society as an autonomous space of resistance, these cases call for a
nuanced analysis of the politics of coalition-building between civic actors and governments.
More than a common project of media reform, civil society emerges as a heterogeneous
space for the articulation of different political priorities and ideologies. The theoretical and
research implications for further global media research are discussed in the conclusions.
doi:10.1111/j.1753-9137.2010.01095.x
Theories about civil society provide both the theoretical scaffolding and normative
direction for recent arguments about progressive media reforms. Just like in the social
sciences in general, civil society has been the ‘‘big idea’’ (Edwards, 2009) in contem-
porary debates about the promotion of public access, participation, and diversity in
media systems. It is central to recent scholarly works on media democracy (Castells,
2007; Christians, Glasser, McQuail, Nodernstreng, & White, 2009; Couldry & Curran,
2003; Dahlgren, 2009), global communication movements (Calabrese, 2004; Hintz,
2009; Padovani & Pavan, 2009; Thomas, 2006), international media assistance pro-
grams (Peters, 2010; Waisbord, 2011), and civic mobilization around media policies
(Hackett & Carroll, 2006; Milton, 2001; Mueller, Page, & Kuerbis, 2004; Napoli, 2007).
Given the power of market interests and government elites in media systems,
strengthening civic presence has been the rallying cry of media reformists around
the globe. Civic society appears as the necessary antidote against the reduction
of media communication to market dynamics and authoritarian impulses. At the
core of this position is the notion that civic society is the backbone of democratic
communication, the necessary safeguard to hold the influence of states and markets
at bay. To effectively act as a communicative space for public deliberation, civil society
needs to be autonomous from states and markets. These goals underpin oppositional
actions aimed at expanding boundaries for critical expression as well as policies to
promote pluralism and citizenship.
Recent studies, however, suggest that the ideal of civil society as the site of
progressive media politics clashes with the messy dynamics of ‘‘real existing’’ civil
societies. The ideal consistency of civic interests uneasily fits the challenges of practical
politics. Research on new democracies and political transitions outside the West show
that the heterogeneity of civil society is crystallized in media outlets that represent
particular and oppositional interests as well as a myriad of contradictory demands
for media policy changes (Hall, 2009; Ismail & Deane, 2008; Keane, 2001; Khiabany,
2007). These studies do not only remind us of competing understandings of civil
society (Hall & Trentmann, 2006). They also invite us to conceptualize civil society
as the space for contestation of dominant powers, reasoned participation, the project
of communicative democracy, and a cacophonous realm of passionate conflicts and
dissonant voices pursuing narrow interests. Whereas the ideal of civil society may
have universal value and provide guidelines for media policies, it is important to
analyze the particular configuration of civil societies as well as the relations between
civil society, the market, and the state.
Within this line of inquiry, this article calls for a critical examination of the
media politics of civic society in new democracies. The analysis discusses media
policies promoted by populist administrations and the reactions of civic groups in
contemporary Latin America. Here my interest is not to propose a specific model
of civil society that should inform the analysis and the politics of media democracy.
Instead, my goal is to draw attention to the need to study specific ‘‘images and
visions’’ of civil society (Keane, 1988) underlying proposals for media reform. The
heated debates about populism’s media politics reflects its peculiar understanding
about civil society, as well as the absence of unifying models of civil society.
Latin America offers a range of interesting experiences to discuss the links between
media and civil society under populism. It has a long tradition of populism and
civic mobilization aimed at democratizing media systems. Civic movements have
pioneered alternative media intended to carve out spaces removed from the influence
of governments and commerce (Rodriguez, 2001). Today, this tradition is continued
by both a vibrant diversity of community-based experiences as well as citizens’
mobilization in processes of media policy change (Waisbord, 2010b). Also, the region
has a tradition of populist administrations, which have historically sought to reform
media systems. In the past, the goals of those policies were to curb the power of
selected private companies, and enlarge the media power of governments.
During the 2000s, populist administrations came to power in several coun-
tries. They include the governments of Nestor Kirchner (2003 – 2007) and his
spouse Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (2007 – present) in Argentina, Evo Morales
(2006 – present) in Bolivia, Rafael Correa (2007 – present) in Ecuador, Daniel Ortega
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S. Waisbord Between Support and Confrontation
(2007 – present) in Nicaragua, and Hugo Chavez (1999 – present) in Venezuela. Just
like their predecessors, they put in motion ambitious projects to change fundamental
aspects of media systems. Such level of legislative activity is remarkable considering
the relative inertia in media legislation since the return of democracy in the region in
the 1980s and 1990s (Fox & Waisbord, 2002).
Unsurprisingly, populist policies generated much controversy among civic society
and market actors. Media policies under populism have been the touchstone for
business and civic activism during the past decade. Whereas some groups applauded
the process of media reform, others have strongly criticized it. Some populist reforms
dovetail with longstanding demands by civic groups, namely, the need to restrict
the power of large media corporations and diversify media ownership. Other civic
groups, however, have been concerned about populism’s lack of accountability in
media policies, penchant for building a media arsenal under direct control by the
Executive, reluctance to promote official transparency, and permanent diatribes
against dissenting views. Populist policies have triggered a vibrant yet belligerent
debate about media reform, which has reinvigorated old discussions in the region
about the desirable role of states, market, and civil society in media systems.
Populist media policies in contemporary Latin America provide a rich set of cases
to refine our understanding about the articulation between civic society and the media.
They show the complex relations between civic actors and governments in processes
of media reform. Contra visions that approach civic society as an autonomous space
of resistance to dominant media, these cases suggest the need for a nuanced analysis
of the dynamic politics of coalition-building between civic actors and governments.
They reflect civic perspectives that refuse to embrace either antistatist positions or
the politics of resistance to promote change. Instead, the cases here examined show
the political divides and the realpolitik of media politics of civil society. More than a
common project of media reform, civil society emerges as a heterogeneous space for
the articulation of different political priorities and ideological views.
Populist media policies
Despite longstanding scholarly attention, we still lack a parsimonious model of
media policies during populism. Obviously, part of the difficulty is the perennial
conceptual ambiguity of the notion of Latin American populism (Conniff, 1999;
Panizza, 2005; Weyland, 2001). Despite continuous attempts to produce categorical
definitions, putting conceptual discussions to rest seems impossible (de la Torre,
2009). Populism is frequently associated with a certain style of political leadership
and a political ideology and mobilization during specific historical periods. Latin
American populism is not identified with right-wing, nationalistic, xenophobic
parties and movements, as it is conventionally understood in the contexts of
European politics. Nor is it simply associated with distributionist economic and
social policies. Scholars have made convincing calls to disentangle the economic
and political dimensions of populism (de la Torre, 2009). Both ideologically and
politically, populism is more complex than what economicistic definitions contend.
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What is distinctive about media policies under populism? Here I propose an
‘‘ideal type’’ based on five key characteristics found in contemporary populism.
First, populism’s view of the media reflects its broader view of democracy and
its institutions. As Peruzzotti (2009) has convincingly argued, populism espouses an
antagonistic worldview of society and politics that echoes Carl Schmitt’s trenchant
critique of parliamentary democracy. Similar to Schmitt’s distinction between friend
and foe, populism views the media as neatly divided between news organizations
and journalists who support the government, and those who do not. The media are
not conceived as independent actors with constitutional rights to scrutinize power;
instead, they are seen as organizations with economic and political positions in favor
of or against the government. Populism reduces the complexity and multilayered
nature of the media to ‘‘our’’ media (entirely supportive of the government) and
‘‘their’’ media (characterized as the façade of antipopular, antigovernment interests).
Liberalism’s conviction that the press should provide ‘‘checks and balances’’ on
the government is absent in populism. Its disregard for the press as ‘‘the fourth estate’’
is symptomatic of its tout court rejection of central principles of liberalism. Instead,
populism approaches the media as organizations that advance interests that match or
contradict the government. Embedded in a framework that sees politics as necessarily
antagonistic, the media are not viewed as vehicles for deliberation or mediation of
public interests. Rather, they are vehicles for particular, narrow interests.
A Schmittian view on media politics underlies both media policies and news
management that are typical of populism. It explains why strengthening the media as
autonomous mediators of social interests is missing in populism’s ambitious agenda
of media reform. By the same token, news management practices also reflect such
friend/foe logic. Practices such as refusing to hold open press conferences, providing
information to sympathetic journalists, and reprimanding reporters for asking critical
questions, which are common under populism, reflect the belief that governments
should only engage with loyal news organizations. The underlying belief is that public
officials do not have the duty to meet the press, but rather the prerogative to decide
with whom to talk.
Second, populist leaders frequently fulminate against selected private media
companies (Kitzberger, 2009). Populist leaders generally take advantage of unfiltered
access to sympathetic media to criticize dissident media and journalists. For example,
daily and weekly broadcasting addresses such as Chavez’s ‘‘Alo Presidente’’ (Morales
& Parra, 2005) and Correa’s ‘‘Diálogo con el Presidente’’ (Conaghan, 2008) have
been filled with verbal attacks against ‘‘the media.’’
There is no shortage of examples illustrating the belligerent discourse of populist
leaders targeted at oppositional media and journalists. In Bolivia, President Morales
has frequently accused media companies of being ‘‘anti-revolutionary’’ and represent-
ing ‘‘landowning interests.’’ Ecuador’s Rafael Correa accused the media of acting like
‘‘feral beasts’’ and representing the interests that caused the 1999 financial crisis, called
TeleAmazonas and newspaper El Universo (two leading media organizations with
open anti-Correa positions) ‘‘information terrorists,’’ and referred to oppositional
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journalists as ‘‘human misery.’’ In Venezuela, Chavez has called the then-dominant
private television networks ‘‘the four raiders of apocalypse,’’ and commonly referred
to the oppositional press as ‘‘the oligarchy’’ and ‘‘counterrevolutionary.’’ Nicaragua’s
President Daniel Ortega has accused leading private media groups of being financed
by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and expressing elite interests. Ortega has
labeled journalists ‘‘Goebbels’ children’’ and ‘‘enemies of the Nicaraguan people.’’ In
Argentina, the late President Nestor Kirchner as well as his wife President Cristina
Fernandez de Kirchner have accused ‘‘media monopolies’’ during their confrontation
with media giant Clarin. Among repeated accusations, Kirchner charged that Clarin’s
negative coverage of his wife’s administration was based ‘‘on the fear of losing its
hegemony and monopoly of communications.’’ Such attacks reflect old populist
discursive themes (de Ipola, 1982; Laclau, 2005): the exaltation of ‘‘the people’’
against the ‘‘oligarchy,’’ the opposition between national and foreign interests, and
the condemnation of particular interests at the expense of the ‘‘common good.’’
Third, populist governments have aimed to limit the power of selected media
companies. Without exceptions, media systems in the region have been dominated
by private corporations with extensive interests in media and key industries (e.g.,
banking, mining, agriculture) (Fox & Waisbord, 2002). They have consistently
defended conservative politics and market economics. Just like in the past, the
majority of those companies have rabidly opposed populist administrations. Their
targets have been some of the most controversial decisions affecting media ownership
and economics. For example, the Chavez administration decided not to renew
the license of Radio Caracas Television, one of the oldest television networks,
after it expired in 2007. Also, it brought legal actions against the other three
networks, and revoked the licenses of over 200 radio stations.1 In Argentina, the
Fernandez de Kirchner administration pushed to reform the broadcasting industry
through a law that, most notably, restricted the cross-media interests of the Clarin
Group.2 In Bolivia, the Morales administration has confronted United and other
private television networks, and brought lawsuits against newspaper La Prensa and
other leading dailies. The government of Rafael Correa expropriated two television
networks, Gama TV and TC Television, after it took over the bankrupted financial
corporation that owned them. Both stations were put up for auction in May
2010. The government also brought lawsuits against oppositional television station
TeleAmazonas and the daily La Hora.
Populist administrations typically justify the decisions to curb the power of
political and economic elites on the grounds that they help to democratize the media,
and punish companies unconcerned with ‘‘the people.’’ When his government
submitted the bill to reform the media system in April 2007, President Correa argued
that the purpose was ‘‘to democratize media ownership, so they do not respond to
narrow and private interests.’’ He also justified the bill on the basis that ‘‘certain
companies do not meet their obligation to inform but to influence citizens on the
basis of their interests. We can’t allow it. Probably, we need more severe laws so the
media can fulfill their true social role’’ (Ayala Marin & Calvache, 2009).3
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Yet it would be mistaken to conclude that populist administrations have waged
all-out attacks against private media or championed full expropriation. Instead,
they have confronted selected media companies while building alliances with some
owners. Their goal has been to revamp the private media landscape rather than
to overturn it. Populist administration has tried to refashion the private media
sector through pulling critical levers in the hands of the Executive (e.g., discre-
tionary management of public advertising, licenses) to castigate and reward specific
groups.
Fourth, populism aims to strengthen state-controlled media networks under
direct supervision by the Presidency. Historically, national governments owned a
handful of radio and television stations in media systems dominated by private
and commercial principles. Just as past populist administrations, current populism
set out to expand the size and reach of government-owned media. The methods
range from assigning generous budgets to state-owned media (print, broadcast, and
digital) to acquiring media companies through assigning broadcasting licenses to
relatives and business partners (Bisbal, 2003a,b). In addition to direct and indirect
ownership, governments have beefed up state-owned media with technological and
human resources. This media infrastructure provides the backbone for unabashedly
official reporting as well as unfiltered and frequent presidential speeches.
After a decade in power, the Chavez administration secured a network of state-
owned and -run print and broadcasting outlets. When he took office, the state
owned the televisión network Venezolana de Televisión (VTV), two radio stations,
and the press agency Venpres. Today, the state controls six television networks
(including VTV and the Televisora Venezolana Social which occupies the signal
formerly assigned to Radio Caracas Television), two radio networks, and the news
agency Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias. Likewise, Ecuador’s Correa has strength-
ened the power of government-owned media. His administration established Radio
Nacional in 2008. The online newspaper El Telegrafo and television stations that
were expropriated in 2008 became part of the official network, which includes over
a dozen broadcasting stations and print media. In Bolivia, the Morales government
controls Channel 7, the news agency Agencia Boliviana de Información, the new
daily El Cambio, and has provided financial support to the Red Patria Nueva, a rural
radio network which currently has more than 30 stations throughout the country.
In 2009, his government decided to bring Patria Nueva under the newly created
Community Radio Network under the National System of Radio of Indigenous Peo-
ples. In Argentina, the Kirchner administration directly controls the National System
of Public Media, which includes outlets that have historically been state-owned
(Channel 7, National Radio, and news agency Telam).
Given that governments in the region have historically showed a tendency to keep
leading media outlets on a short leash (Fox & Waisbord, 2002), what is unique about
populism? Populism is characterized by an aggressive strategy to expand the number
of media organizations under direct control of the Executive and increase the budgets
of government media. Strategies have ranged from granting broadcasting permits to
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sympathetic owners to taking over companies on the grounds that previous owners
had committed legal transgressions, evaded taxes, or operated with expired licenses.
Fifth, populist governments support legislation strengthening the regulatory
power of the Executive on media content. This includes regulation on a range of
issues, from programming quotas to news content. Such decisions are justified on the
notion that legislation is needed to promote the social responsibility of the media. This
underlies, for example, the 2004 ‘‘RESORTE’’ law in Venezuela, which the Chavez
government justified to promote domestic production and protect children. The issue
of social responsibility has also been invoked to regulate speech related to government
acts. In early 2010, President Morales espoused such argument when he justified the
need for ‘‘ethical recommendations’’ to prevent the press ‘‘from lying’’ after a major
daily published information about alleged corruption in his administration.
To recapitulate, populism embraces antagonistic media politics, engages in dis-
cursive skirmishes with the private sector, enacts policies to weaken selected media
companies, strengthens state ownership, and intends to regulate specific forms of
media content.
These media politics have taken place amidst political polarization and the crisis
of traditional political parties in democracies (Ellner & Hellinger, 2003). To say that
populist politics has created such polarized politics would be wrong. Rather, they
exacerbate polarization in democracies already deeply divided along partisan, class,
ethnic, and racial cleavages.
Not surprisingly, just as has happened during previous populist governments,
leading media groups have rabidly attacked governments. Domestic and regional
media owners’ associations have condemned government policies under the ban-
ner of ‘‘freedom of expression.’’ Private media owners hold that official policies
are intended to stifle critical journalism and build a government-run propaganda
machine. Populist presidents have rejected such charges by arguing that media
associations are not truly concerned with freedom of expression, but rather with
protecting their own business interests.
Media corporations have been at the forefront of the opposition against populist
governments. Their editorial positions have been unmistakable in news coverage,
particularly during key political events. In Venezuela, the three leading television net-
works played a decisive role during the failed 2002 coup against Chavez. They enacted
a virtual news blackout of pro-Chavez voices (Gottberg, 2004; Linares Rodriguez,
2006). Anti-Chavez bias was also evident in the news coverage of the initiative to
pass a constitutional amendment to allow Chavez’s re-election. A similar pattern of
one-sided coverage was found in the election for the Constitutional Assembly in 2006
in Bolivia (Grebe, 2007; Peñaranda, 2007). The Morales government confronted the
fiery opposition from leading media groups, particularly those organizations based in
the resource-rich, eastern provinces (ONADEM, 2009; Villegas, 2008). In Argentina,
leading news organizations, including Clarin and La Nación, have unequivocally
taken a critical position vis-à-vis the Kirchner administration’s proposal for a tax hike
on farm exports during 2008 (Becerra & Mastrini, 2010). As the government held
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a protracted battle with a broad coalition of farming interests, leading newspapers
offered a one-sided coverage. Amidst the growing polarization of public opinion,
other media (such as the daily Página/12 and the state-owned broadcasting stations)
similarly abandoned any pretense of journalistic fairness and evenhandedness and,
instead, defended the government’s proposal.
Why ‘‘populist’’ media politics?
Why should the combination of those five characteristics be called ‘‘populist’’ media
politics? Should they, instead, be labeled ‘‘socialist’’ or ‘‘progressive,’’ given that those
governments are widely seen as prime exemplars of the recent ‘‘left’’ turn in Latin
American politics (Arnson et al., 2009; Beasley-Murray, Cameron, & Herschberg,
2009; Castaneda, 2006)? Using ‘‘populist,’’ ‘‘left,’’ ‘‘progressive,’’ or ‘‘socialist’’ is
obviously fraught with problems given their perennial conceptual ambiguity. Con-
stant efforts to produce consensus definitions have not been successful. Nor have
recent arguments to distinguish ‘‘two lefts’’ (French, 2009; Petkoff, 2005; Weyland,
2009) and between ‘‘right-wing’’ and ‘‘left-wing’’ populism in contemporary Latin
American politics dispelled existing confusion.
Even if most leaders have frequently identified their administrations as ‘‘21st
century’’ and ‘‘creole’’ socialism, their media policies, just like their politics in general
(De la Torre & Peruzzotti, 2008), have more in common with old-fashioned populism
rather than with Latin American or global socialism.4 They fit neither Cuba’s post-
1959 regime nor Chile’s Salvador Allende’s ‘‘democratic path to socialism’’ in the early
1970s. Neither the model of complete state-run media monopolies (under classic
communism) nor the mixed model of public broadcasting and private ownership
characterizes media systems under populism. Instead, they reflect typical themes
of classic populism in the region. The distrust of liberal democratic institutions
(including the press), the dichotomous vision of the media, the reliance on discursive
oppositions between ‘‘the people/nation’’ and ‘‘the oligarchy’’ to justify media
policies, targeted battles with private owners, and state intervention in media systems
to strengthen the government’s information power are all found in the media policies
of the classic cases of populisms from the 1940s through the 1960s.
The ideal type of ‘‘media populism’’ presented earlier should help to be more
rigorous when using the adjective ‘‘populist’’ to describe media politics and policies.
Some terms often used to describe ‘‘media populism’’ are not essential components of
populism, specifically, media patrimonialism, antiprivate/market policies, antipress
violence, and charismatic/personalistic communicative styles. None of these features
are unique to populism.
Consider media patrimonialism, the discretionary use of public resources to
strengthen the media power of the Executive. Patronage practices have included the
unaccountable management of public resources affecting media systems (e.g., adver-
tising, licenses, newsprint) to reward allies and punish critical voices. Patrimonialism
has been a constant during democratic and authoritarian regimes as well as
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conservative and liberal administrations (Waisbord, 2010a). In this sense, populism
perpetuates, rather than creates, the politics of media patrimonialism. Nor should
we make antipress violence an essential element of populism. Neither verbal tirades
against critics nor the persecution of dissident reporters are unique to populism.
Sadly, violence against the press has been a constant across countries and administra-
tions with different ideological leanings (Waisbord, 2007).5 Also, identifying populist
policies with a fundamental opposition to private media is misguided. Media owners’
associations have vigorously reacted against populist policies claiming that they deal
a blow to press freedom. Resting on a conventionally liberal notion that views any
kind of government intervention as necessarily toxic for media democracy, they
have argued that those policies undermine constitutional rights. They have tried to
characterize populist policies as aimed at the private sector as a whole.
The reality, however, is more complex. First, specific companies, not the entire
private sector, have been the target of presidential verbal salvos and decisions.
Presidential decisions and media bills were aimed at restricting the business prowess
of certain companies. Second, governments confronted some media companies
with whom they had previously enjoyed quid pro quo relations. Certainly, some
administrations have been the target of relentless criticisms by some leading media
companies, but they have not confronted a solid private media bloc unanimously
opposed to their policies. President Chavez had enjoyed favorable coverage from
television networks Venevision and Televen, most notably during the 2008 elections.
President Fernandez de Kirchner as well as her husband enjoyed favorable coverage
from media corporations that have significantly expanded their interests during
their mandates. During the presidency of Nestor Kirchner, the government and
media giant Clarin had an amicable relationship. This relationship underpinned the
application of the law 27750, which prevented the buy-out of media companies by
foreign creditors.6 Additionally, two other decisions benefitted Clarin: the 10-year
extension of the licenses of the two leading television stations (the Clarin Group owns
Channel 13), and the removal of restrictions on cable and Internet ownership, which
allowed the merger of the largest cable systems in the country in Clarin’s hands.
Finally, we should not assimilate populism’s media policies with the use of certain
campaigning techniques (Boas, 2005). The use of opinion polls and television,
charismatic leadership, and discursive appeals to ‘‘the people’’ are ingredients of
styles of electoral and presidential communication. They are not media policies.
Furthermore, such communicative styles are not unique to so-called ‘‘populist’’
politicians who champion certain politics and economic policies (Waisbord, 2003).
In media ecologies dominated by entertainment and popular narratives, they have
been extensively utilized by candidates and presidents from different political stripes.
Divided civic society
Populist media policies have met different responses from civic society. Civic
responses as well as the relations between populism and civil society cannot be easily
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summarized in Manichean terms. ‘‘Civil society’’ has neither supported nor opposed
populism. Rather, it has been fractured. Civic associations have offered different
responses to government initiatives. The oft-used notion of ‘‘civil society’’ to criticize
or celebrate populist policies masks the profound ambiguity of the concept as well as
populism’s particular vision of civil society as a space for democratic communication
(Cañizalez, 2004).
A range of civic groups, including grassroots and community media, left-wing
journalists’ associations, and human rights organizations, have welcomed populist
policies (Mastrini & Marino, 2008; Parra, 2009). Whereas they are ideologically
mixed, drawing on nationalism, communitarian, Marxism, indigenismo and human
rights principles, they agree that the excessive power of large corporations is the
central problem of media systems in Latin America. Although commercialism has
been a permanent feature throughout the media’s history, the runaway growth of
media corporations has become the central challenge for communicative democracy.
During the past decades, the politics of privatization, liberalization, and deregula-
tion promoted by neoconservative administrations cemented the power of media
corporations (Becerra & Mastrini, 2009). Media concentration narrows down the
spectrum of issues and perspective in the media. Furthermore, the editorial agenda
of dominant corporations is closely intertwined with dominant business interests
both at the national and regional level. The majority of dominant newspapers and
broadcasting stations are strategic arms of the most powerful corporations in key
economic sectors. The domination of commercial principles and private ownership
leaves out a diversity of views, particularly the voices of ethnic minorities, local
organizations, and progressive actors.
These groups have applauded actions to curb the power of media corpora-
tions and diversify media ownership. In Argentina, for example, the Coalition for
Democratic Broadcasting supported the media bill sent to Congress by President
Fernandez de Kirchner in 2009. The Coalition represents more than 300 civic groups,
including human rights, professional, and nongovernment organizations; political
parties; unions and universities. It held town hall meetings to present and discuss
early drafts of the bill. Among its most salient aspects, the law puts limitations on
vertical and horizontal ownership, and assigns a third of broadcasting frequencies to
community media.7 President Fernandez de Kirchner and the late President Nestor
Kirchner frequently mentioned civic participation during the drafting of the bill to
legitimize the democratic origins and objectives of the law. Civic groups also praised
official initiatives in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela to pass ownership limitations
and legalize the situation of community media.8
In contrast, populist media policies have been criticized by a different set of civic
groups including nongovernment organizations, and journalists’ and lawyers’ associ-
ations. In their view, populist administrations do not only leave untouched, but also
deepen the basic problems of media systems, such as the discretionary management
of public resources, lack of citizens’ access to government information, and weak legal
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support to criticize governments. Populism shows absolute contempt for actions to
correct longstanding deficits of government transparency and accountability.
Such groups argue that legislative reforms to facilitate public access to government
information have not been a top priority for populism. All countries have legislation
that, in principle, guarantees public access to information (Inter-American Dialogue,
2009). National freedom of information acts were passed in Bolivia and Ecuador in
2004, and in Nicaragua in 2007. Although Argentina and Venezuela still lack national
laws, the right to petition access to public information is recognized in their national
constitutions (Risley, 2006).9 Research has found that the enforcement of information
laws is weak. Public requests are rarely responded to given that government staff are
not properly aware of procedures and obligations, lack resources to attend requests,
and, more importantly, are not properly monitored. Given these problems, critics
accuse governments of ignoring such problems, and shutting off efforts to strengthen
the application of the law (Coalición Pro Acceso, 2007; Fundación Chamorro, 2010;
Garrido, Braguinsky, & Araujo, 2010).
The application of the legislation has been a point of contention between
governments and civic groups. In Argentina, civic organizations criticized the
government’s decisions to remove a website that featured official information
(www.mejordemocracia.gov.ar) and cancel a high-profile meeting on freedom of
information legislation. In Nicaragua, civic organizations that spearheaded the 2007
law criticized the Ortega administration for not addressing some controversial
clauses. The law contains clauses that stipulate that the press should report in a
‘‘responsible manner’’ and ‘‘respect the honor and good name of those persons likely
implicated in journalistic investigations.’’ For critics (Chamorro, 2008), this language
leaves the door open for libel and insult laws which historically muzzled coverage of
government officials.
Such concerns are related to the argument that populist governments not only
have shown little interest in repealing ‘‘insult’’ laws, but they have also tried to gag the
press with new legislation.10 For example, a range of civic groups condemned the Law
of Social Responsibility in Radio and Television (the RESORTE law, as it is known
by its Spanish acronym) and the bill of ‘‘media crimes’’ sponsored by the Chavez
government (Morales & Parra, 2005; Olivera Soto, 2007). Critics included journalists’
associations (Colegio Nacional de Prensa, Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la
Prensa), press freedom organizations (Reporters sans Frontiers, Instituto de Prensa
y Sociedad, Human Rights Watch, Expresión Libre), and other nongovernment
organizations (including SINERGIA, Transparency International, Espacio Público,
and PROVEA). They viewed both bills as evidence of the government’s intention to
tighten news control. In contrast, other groups such as the Movimiento por el Peri-
odismo Necesario (Movement for a Necessary Journalism), Periodistas por la Verdad
(Journalists for Truth), and the Bloque Bolivariano de Medios Socialistas Alternativos
y Comunitarios (Bolivarian Bloc of Socialist, Alternative, and Community Media)
have supported official policies.
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In Bolivia, civic groups have criticized President Morales on various occasions
(see Torrico Villanueva, 2010). The Asociación de Periodistas de Bolivia and the
Asociación de Periodistas de La Paz rejected the announcement of a new media
bill. They characterized the proposal as a government’s attempt to control the
media. Community radio organizations, which represent the country’s long tradition
of grassroots media, have questioned the use of ‘‘community radio’’ to call the
government-run network. They argue that the network basically functions as a
transmitter of official and centralized information, which contradicts basic principles
of community media. The Confederación de Trabajadores de la Prensa de Bolivia
regretted the derogatory remarks about journalists made by Morales who said that
only ‘‘ten percent of journalists are honest.’’
Some civic groups have also accused populist governments of perpetuating secrecy
and discretionalism in media policy-making (Marenco, 2009). Whereas some admin-
istrations have made calls for government-based media observatories to monitor the
performance of private media, such as the cases of Presidents Rafael Correa and
Hugo Chavez, they have not been equally interested in supporting autonomous
mechanisms for citizens to oversee government media. For critics, such disregard
for strengthening accountability in government and the oversight role of the media
patently reflect populism’s equivocal commitment to media democracy.
The allocation of official advertising has been a point of contention between civic
groups and governments. In Argentina, for example, civic organizations have docu-
mented not only the substantial increase in the amount of official media advertising
during the administrations of Kirchner and Fernandez de Kirchner. They claim that
government policies are plagued by arbitrariness and secrecy to facilitate the expan-
sion of the official media apparatus. The government has not only increased the size
of official advertising, but it has also assigned the lion’s share to sympathetic media
(O’Donnell, 2007). A survey shows that reporters consider government advertising
one of the top problems for practicing journalism (FOPEA, 2005). Scholarly research
has documented the negative impact of government advertising on news coverage
about official corruption: News organizations that receive larger amounts of official
advertising are less likely to report wrongdoing (Di Tella & Franceschelli, 2009).
Another target of criticisms has been presidents’ verbal tirades against media
and journalists. Groups have criticized populist leaders for regularly castigating
oppositional media owners and journalists (Bisbal, 2003a,b). In their view, constant
rants about the press have a chilling effect for they reinforce a climate of self-censorship
and fear in societies with a tradition of antipress violence.
It would be wrongheaded to suggest that the dissimilar reactions of civil society are
simply a byproduct of populist policies. Different reactions reflect the two dominant
strands of media movements in contemporary Latin America (Waisbord, 2010b).
Questions of transparency and accountability as well as ownership and access have
been atop civic mobilization throughout the region during the past decades. To view
these positions as neatly divided or even opposed is wrong. Given the challenges
for media democracy in the region, they address different yet complementary issues.
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Indeed, in cases such as in Argentina, civic groups with contrasting positions vis-à-vis
the Kirchner administrations have participated in broad coalitions pushing for the
same media reforms (e.g., the repeal of gag laws, the passing of national freedom of
information legislation) in the past.
One could argue, however, that populism deepens ideological divides as it
vigorously drives its ambitious agenda of media reform. Just as it forces divisions
among ‘‘sympathetic’’ and ‘‘oppositional’’ media business, it heightens divisions
among competing projects of media reform in civil society. During populism, civil
society is particularly fragmented and conflictive, as governments actively seek to
build coalitions with (or co-opt) some civic actors while confronting others. Polarized
politics are inevitably inscribed in populist politics. They are intrinsic to populism’s
view of media politics.
Civic society and the problems of media democracy
Different civic reactions to populist media policies bring up important questions
for the analysis of civic society in processes of media reform. This issue is relevant
not only to discuss media democracy in Latin America, but also to theorize the
articulation between civil society, the state, and the media.
These experiences raise a question that has not been central in the literature: How is
media pluralism possible in countries with weak traditions of democratic government?
Recent writings on both sides of the North Atlantic assign the state a crucial role in
the promotion of media reforms. Such calls are intellectually anchored in the history
of state intervention in print and broadcasting in European democracies to support
the diversification of media ownership and content. U.S. scholars (McChesney
& Nichols, 2010; Downie & Schudson, 2009) have recently invoked the need to
draw lessons from that tradition to strengthen the prospects of journalism and
the media amidst the crisis of newspapers and the press. The idea that state
intervention is necessary is at the core of old and new proposals to democratize media
systems through diversified ownership, subsidies, taxation, funding mechanisms,
management structures, and other mechanisms. Those proposals draw upon a
longstanding tradition of democratic governance and liberalism in the West, which
are crucial to ensure that the principles of accountability, transparency, pluralism,
and representation undergrid state intervention.
This Western blueprint of media democratization awkwardly fits with the history
of media politics in Latin America (Cañizález, 2009). There is a weak tradition of
constitutional rule as countries have been subjected to cycles of authoritarianism and
democracy. Instead, there is a strong tradition of unchecked government intrusion on
media affairs, and the utilization of government-owned media as political patronage
and propaganda (Waisbord, 2010a). Furthermore, contemporary party systems,
particularly in countries governed by populism, are often described in terms of
being in ‘‘disarray’’ and ‘‘crisis’’ given the notorious difficulties of political parties
to articulate and represent social interests. Nor does Latin America have a similar
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historical development of civil society. As several authors (Garreton, 2006; Olvera,
1999) have convincingly argued, civil society in the region did not evolve as an
autonomous, countervailing power to the State or as the backbone of Tocquevillean
associational life. Instead, it evolved largely as a result of mobilization from above
to pursue specific political, state-linked projects. Consequently, to talk about ‘‘civil
society’’ as a separate space at arm’s length from the State deeply misreads the region’s
political history. The centripetal tendencies of state policies coupled with the recurrent
cycles of authoritarianism laid a feeble basis for civil society to act as an independent
counterpower to the state. In sum, key conditions that underlied the elaboration and
implementation of Western models of media democracy are missing in Latin America.
These differences are important to understand dissimilar reactions from civil
society to populist media politics. At the core of these positions of civic groups lie
different diagnoses and priorities about the problems of media democracy. Whereas
one position believes that ownership patterns and runaway commercialization are the
main challenges for media democratization, the other is primarily concerned about
the role of the media in the improvement of the quality of democratic governance.
The former supports populism out of the conviction that its policies effectively
regulate the power of business corporations and strengthen public access to the
media. The latter, instead, believes that populism aggravates the consuetudinary
deficit of government transparency and accountability in Latin American politics.
Underlying these two positions are opposite views about the ideal relation between
civil society and media democracy. Both believe in the need of statist policies to
reorganize media order as well as the central role of civil society in media systems.11
Yet their different positions reflect differences in the conceptualization of civil society
and the state.
Critics question whether populism, given its skepticism if not straightfor-
ward opposition to liberalism, can promote media systems embedded in demo-
cratic – liberal principles. They doubt populism has the right credentials to spearhead
reforms based on dissent, criticism, and the unfettered freedom of expression. Com-
mon media management practices, as shown in the discretionary management of
public resources, media favoritism, and quid pro quo dealings with private media
owners, do not suggest a firm commitment to democratization. Populism’s checkered
record makes it necessary to retain the notion of civic society as an autonomous space
of opposition to the state, especially given its chronic weakness in the region’s convo-
luted political history. Civil society needs to remain a countervailing power to the state.
The other position believes that populism offers a viable alternative to break the
stranglehold of private corporations on media systems that perpetuates communica-
tion inequalities. Given the historical collusion between conservative media business
and politicians, populism provides a path for democratizing media systems. Put
in Gramscian terms, it views populism as a counterhegemonic force to develop an
alternative to the ruling order, and the linchpin between civil society and the state in
processes of political change (Laclau, 2005).12
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Different civic reactions to populist policies reveal more than just the divisions
of civil societies, an issue already discussed by classic political theorists (Edwards,
2009; Held, 1987). They suggest that irreconcilable visions of civil society and
democratic politics underlie different models of media reform. One position, heir to
the liberal tradition, distrusts the state and believes that civil society should remain a
protected communicative space for debate and criticism. Populism’s ardent statism is
worrisome, if not plainly dangerous, to civic expression. It confirms liberal suspicions
about the proclivity of the state to arbitrariness as well as the tenet that civil society
(and the press as a civic institution) should remain vigilant.
The other position, instead, espouses a Gramscian approach by which civil society
and the state are inseparable in processes of domination and counterhegemony. A
unified civil society representing subaltern groups is necessary to lead the process
of state and media transformation. Populism’s statism is a viable political path to
champion the principles of pluralism and community and reorganize media orders
dominated by commercialism. Populism seems responsive to demands to curb
corporate power, institutionalize the voice of marginalized communities, and undo
the legacy of neoconservative media politics. Populism’s media politics are viewed as
representative of its broader goal to resist and transform neo-liberalism into a more
egalitarian social order.
Underlying the hyper-charged media environment under populism, charac-
terized by constant presidential sniping at big media companies and ferocious
antigovernment opposition from traditional media companies, are two visions of
civil society. The sharp rhetoric and aggressive actions of presidents coupled with
the fiery responses from large media business typically make national and global
headlines. It is the focus for endless debate. Such intense attention may give the
impression that the fundamental divide is about state and markets — that populism
basically represents another battle of the war between states and markets in media
systems. Yet populism cannot be simply interpreted as the opposition between states
and markets, a dichotomy that does not quite capture the complexity of political
alliances and conflicts. The point is not to minimize the conflicts between state
and market interests, but, rather, to highlight that contrasting views about media
reform and models of civil society are at stake in the turmoil swirling populist media
politics.
Conclusion
The cases here examined suggest the need to refine the analysis about civil society and
media democracy. Just to view civil society as a communicative space of opposition
to the state and the market is insufficient. It may be normatively valuable in situations
of authoritarianism and totalitarianism, where, typically, civic groups repudiate state
policies and push for democratic communication. It is analytically too blunt, however,
to analyze media politics across democracies. Multiple experiences of citizens’ activism
in support or opposition to populism suggest that civil society is hardly the expression
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of unified interests. Civil society encompasses heterogeneous and contradictory
interests about desirable media systems, policy priorities, and paths to reform.
This heterogeneity should make us more cautious about making categorical
generalizations about ‘‘civic society’’ or ‘‘civic engagement with the state.’’ Who
are we talking about? What are their priorities? How are civic actors positioned
vis-à-vis competing state interests? What alliances are formed between civic and state
interests? What views of civil society inform policy debates and proposals? Asking
these questions is necessary to understand ideological and political divides in civil
society as well as the articulation between civic groups and political elites.
The cases of populist media policies in Latin America have important implications
for the study of civic mobilization and media reform in global and national settings.
The fissures of civil society under populism make it necessary to take analytical
approaches that are sensitive to the contrasting politics of civil groups as well as
the particular incarnations of the state. In democracy, civic society is hardly the
unified counterpower to the state generally described (and exalted) in situations of
regime transition. Rather, it is the realm of topsy-turvy politics, special interests, and
coalitions amidst the unpredictability of democratic politics. Current populist media
policies show the complexities of public-minded media reforms when the principles
of civil society run into the contentious business of democratic politics. Just as we
should keep in mind that populism has a paradoxical relationship with democratic
politics (Arditi, 2007), we should also be sensitive to the complex media politics of
civil society.
Future studies on civic mobilization and media reform should continue to tease
out the plurality of public interests, and the dissonant politics of civil society. This
requires a close examination of the articulation of civic interests and political elites, as
well as political alliances around media policies. The cases discussed here, hopefully,
may encourage further exploration of civil society and the politics of media reform
in different contexts.
Notes
1 Whereas the government basically justified the decision on the basis of the illegal status
of the stations, critics (including media owners) pointed at the anti-Chavez orientation
of the station as the motivation.
2 The law was passed in October 2009, and replaced the 1980 law enacted by the last
military dictatorship. As of the time of this writing, the law has not been implemented
yet. Upon request from a parliamentarian, federal judges decided to suspend several of
its articles at the end of 2009. On June 15, 2010, the Supreme Court decided to annul the
judges’ decision.
3 The bill was supported by the Foro Ecuatoriano de la Comunicacion, a coalition of
universities, unions, and indigenous, human rights, faith-based, professional, and
nongovernment organizations. As of the time of this writing, the bill is under debate in
Congress.
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4 Presidents Chavez, Correa, and Morales have frequently invoked socialism in their calls
to sympathetic media and journalists to ‘‘join the battle against capitalism.’’ In line with
Peronism’s historical distance from left-wing labels, the Kirchners have avoided making
references to socialism in their confrontations with private media organizations, but,
instead, chose to make ‘‘media monopolies’’ the discursive bête noire during their
conflict with the Clarin Group.
5 Over the years, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters sans Frontiers, as well as
several local press freedom groups have extensively documented a variety of forms of
intimidation against the press. Tactics have included mob attacks on the buildings of
oppositional news organizations, anonymous denunciations of critical journalists
plastered on city billboards, raids of media offices by the police and tax authorities,
pressures against media owners to take critical journalists off the air, physical violence,
and telephone threats. Critics contend that governments failed to conduct thorough
investigations and often remained silent about those incidents.
6 Like many other leading companies in the country, Clarin emerged heavily indebted out
of the 2001collapse of the Argentine economy.
7 The law includes several points that fit the agenda of several groups such as the
limitations on the number of radio and television stations that can be owned by the same
company, the ban of cable and over-the-air television cross-ownership, and the decision
to force owners whose media interests do not comply with law to sell assets within a
year. The law was lauded by various global organizations such as the World Association
of Community Radio Broadcasters and the UN Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression.
8 In Venezuela, the Chavez government passed the 2002 law to legalize nonprofit,
community media. The situation, however, remains largely undefined as many stations
are still in precarious situations both legally and economically. In Bolivia, a country with
a long tradition of grassroots media, there are more than 120 registered community
radio stations. In 2006, the Morales administration enacted a law to provide a legal
framework for rural and community stations.
9 In both countries, some states and municipalities have legislation authorizing public
access to official information.
10 It is worth mentioning that not all populist governments have adopted a similar position
on this issue. Notably, Argentine President Fernandez de Kirchner submitted a bill to
repeal ‘‘insult’’ laws. The Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales, a leading human rights
organization founded during the last military dictatorship, was the lead advocate for the
bill, which was passed by Congress in November 2009.
11 It is important to keep in mind that official media policies in Latin America have always
been ‘‘statist’’ (Fox & Waisbord, 2002). Military and civilian governments provided the
economic and technological foundations for commercial media systems. Governments
have been leading actors in media economics as they supported the production or
importation of newsprint, equipment, advertising, and other inputs through various
means (e.g., tax breaks, subsidies, preferred loans on government-owned banks).
Neither industry nor civic actors have manifested wariness about state meddling in
media economics. Business, certainly, has greatly benefited as state support allowed their
expansion and consolidation.
12 Not accidentally, sympathetic voices have used Gramscian language to characterize
populist politics as ‘‘the crisis of hegemony’’ in which the old conservative order is
under threat (Romero, 2009; Torrico, 2008). President Chavez himself, who frequently
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refers to Simon Bolivar and other 19th century-Latin American national heroes as the
intellectual inspiration of his ‘‘Boliviarian revolution,’’ approvingly cited Antonio
Gramsci to describe Venezuela’s situation as a ‘‘truly organic crisis’’ during the 2007
constitutional referendum campaign.
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在支持与对质之间：拉丁美洲的公民社会、媒体改革和人民党主义
Silvio Waisbord
乔治华盛顿大学媒体与公共事务学院
【摘要：】
本文呼吁在新民主政治中对公民社会的媒体政治进行批判的审视。本文讨论了人民党主
义机构的媒体政策和民间团体在当代拉丁美洲的作用。分析表明了在媒体改革进程中公民参
与者和政府之间的复杂关系。与将公民社会作为抵抗的自治领域的观点相反，这些情况要求
对公民行为者和政府之间的联合政治进行细致入微的分析。公民社会作为一个阐释各种政治
优先权和意识形态的异构空间而出现，而非仅仅是一个媒体改革的普通项目。最后本文就对
理论和对进一步研究全球媒体的意义进行了讨论。
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Entre soutien et confrontation : société civile, réforme médiatique et populisme en Amérique
latine
Cet article appelle à un examen critique de la politique médiatique de la société civile dans les
nouvelles démocraties. L’analyse discute les politiques médiatiques des administrations
populistes et le rôle des groupes de citoyens dans l’Amérique latine contemporaine. L’analyse
montre les relations complexes entre les acteurs civils et les gouvernements lors de réformes
médiatiques. Contre des visions approchant la société civile comme un espace de résistance
autonome, ces cas appellent à une analyse nuancée de la politique de la construction d’une
coalition entre acteurs civils et gouvernements. Plus qu’un projet commun de réforme
médiatique, la société civile émerge comme un espace hétérogène d’articulation de différentes
priorités politiques et d’idéologies. Les conséquences théoriques et pratiques pour la recherche
future sur les médias mondiaux sont discutées en conclusion.
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Zwischen Unterstützung und Konfrontation: Zivilgesellschaft, Medienreform und
Populismus in Lateinamerika
Silvio Waisbord
Dieser Artikel fordert eine kritische Betrachtung von Medienpolitik in der
Zivilgesellschaft neuer Demokratien. Die Analyse diskutiert die Medienpolitik von
populistischen Verwaltungen und die Rolle von Zivilgruppen im heutigen Lateinamerika.
Die Analyse zeigt die komplexen Beziehungen zwischen zivilen Akteuren und
Regierungen in Prozessen der Medienreform. Entgegen bestimmter Sichtweisen, die
Zivilgesellschaft als einen autonomen Raum des Widerstands verstehen, fordern diese
Beispiele eine nuancierte Analyse einer Politik der Koalitionsbildung zwischen zivilen
Akteuren und Regierungen. Über das allgemeine Projekt Medienreform hinaus, tritt die
Zivilgesellschaft als ein heterogener Ort für die Artikulation verschiedener politischer
Prioritäten und Ideologien hervor. Implikationen für Theoriebildung und Forschung zu
globalen Medien werden in der Zusammenfassung diskutiert.
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지지와 대결사이: 라틴 아메리카에서의 시민사회, 미디어 개혁, 그리고 포풀리즘
Silvio Waisbord
School of Media and Public Affairs, George Washington University
본 연구는 새로운 민주주의하에서의 시민사회의 미디어정치에 대한 비판적인 조사이다.
본 논문은 현재 라틴 아메리카내에서의 대중에 영합하는 행정부들의 미디어 정치와
시민집단들의 역할에 대해 논의했다. 본 연구는 미디어 개혁과정에서 시민행동가들과
정부들사이에서는 복잡한 관계들이 있다는 것을 보여주고 있다. 저항의 자동적
공간으로서 반대의 비젼들이 시민사회에 나타났으며, 이러한 경우들은 시민행위가들과
정부들 사이의 협조체제 형성의 정치에 대한 조심스러운 분석을 요구한다. 미디어개혁의
일반적 프로젝트보다 시민사회는 상이한 정치적 우선순위들과 이데올로기들의 조율함에
있어 이질적인 공간으로 나타났다. 글로벌 미디어 연구를 위한 이론적 그리고 연구적
함의들이 토론되었다.
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Entre el Apoyo y la Confrontación:
La Sociedad Civil, la Reforma de los Medios, y el Populismo en América Latina
Silvio Waisbord
School of Media and Public Affairs, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052,
USA
Resumen
Este ensayo llama a una examinación crítica de la política de los medios sobre la sociedad civil
en las nuevas democracias. El análisis discute las políticas de los medios de las administraciones
populistas y el rol de los grupos civiles en la Latino América contemporánea. El análisis muestra
la complejidad de las relaciones entre los actores civiles y los gobiernos en los procesos de
reforma de los medios. Las contra-visiones que enfocan a la sociedad civil como un espacio
autónomo de resistencia, estos casos llaman a un análisis matizado de las políticas de
construcción de coalición entre los actores civiles y los gobiernos. Más que un proyecto común
de reforma de los medios, la sociedad civil emerge como un espacio heterogéneo para la
articulación de las prioridades e ideologías políticas diferentes. Las implicancias teóricas e
investigativas para la pesquisa global de los medios son discutidas más aún en las conclusiones.
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