Product Description

Drawing on examples from the 20th century's "total wars" and also "limited wars", terrorist campaigns and "complex emergencies" such as Rwanda and Somalia, this study argues that the media's performance in wartime may result as much from peacetime journalistic practices as from the special circumstances of war. The book concludes by assessing the impact of new communications technology and how the representation of future wars is likely to differ from those in the past.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #331402 in Books
• Published on: 1999-10-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

About the Author
SUSAN L. CARRUTHERS is Lecturer in International Politics, University of Wales, Aberystwyth.

Customer Reviews

Thorough, comprehensive, and very readable
This book is a thorough piece of scholarship that seeks to examine the relationship between the media and its wartime subjects. By looking at warfare from the First World War right up until more recent conflicts (including Vietnam and the trouble in the Balkans), Carruthers exposes how the nature of reporting conflict has changed over the past 100 years, and that due to technological advances the public are almost active participants in war; no longer do people go to a picture house to watch a highly edited and staged report from the Western Front. Rather live television and on-board imagery from missiles and aeroplanes means the real cut and thrust of war is beamed into millions of homes each evening.

This study is well researched and written in a lively, yet detailed manner. Neatly separated into six chapters, it is clear and illuminating, and is a 'must read' for students of communication and propaganda, as well as for those who want to find out a little more about a side of warfare that is often ignored by many historians.