Media, War & Conflict 

About: Media, War & Conflict is an academic journal published by SAGE Publishing. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Framing (social sciences) & Terrorism. It has an ISSN identifier of 1750-6352. Over the lifetime, 393 publications have been published receiving 4969 citations. The journal is also known as: Media, war and conflict & MWC.

Strategic narrative: A new means to understand soft power

Abstract: Soft power in its current, widely understood form has become a straitjacket for those trying to understand power and communication in international affairs. Analyses of soft power overwhelmingly focus on soft power ‘assets’ or capabilities and how to wield them, not how influence does or does not take place. It has become a catch-all term that has lost explanatory power, just as hard power once did. The authors argue that the concept of strategic narrative gives us intellectual purchase on the complexities of international politics today, especially in regard to how influence works in a new media environment. They believe that the study of media and war would benefit from more attention being paid to strategic narratives.

A visual framing analysis of British press photography during the 2006 Israel- Lebanon conflict:

Abstract: This article develops a model of visual framing analysis through an examination of the photographic representation of the 2006 Israel—Lebanon conflict. The intentions of this investigation are twof...

Rethinking media and disasters in a global age: What’s changed and why it matters

Abstract: Today’s media ecology and communication flows circumscribe the globe, extending beyond and intensifying earlier spatial–temporal communication trends. New and old media increasingly enter into disasters shaping them from the inside out, and outside in, reconfiguring disaster social relations, channelling forms of political control and projects for change, and circulating deep-seated cultural views and sentiments. Approached in global context, disasters can also no longer be presumed to be territorially bounded or nationally confined events, seemingly erupting without warning to disrupt routines, established norms and social order. Many disasters are now increasingly best reconceptualised and theorised as endemic to, enmeshed within and potentially encompassing in today’s globally interconnected (dis)order. This article elaborates on these twin propositions about the changing ontology of disasters in a globalizing world and their epistemological constitution through media and communications and provides theoretical and conceptual coordinates for improved understanding and future research.

‘The vermin have struck again’: dehumanizing the enemy in post 9/11 media representations:

Abstract: Much of the scholarly attention surrounding the media’s treatment of the so-called ‘war on terror’ has focused on its uncritical replication of the Bush administration’s rhetorical framing of the conflict, in which the September 11 attacks were seen as acts of war initiating a retaliatory war on terror. While this dominant, martial framing is now being challenged, an equally significant framing remains largely unexamined, one as significant to media rhetoric and public perception as the war trope itself. This article identifies the consistent pattern of dehumanizing metaphor that dominates Western media’s coverage. It focuses on newspaper headlines as influentially compressed narratives replicating and recycling key metaphors that systematically figure the enemy as animal, vermin, or metastatic disease. These dehumanizing media representations, which have historically prefigured abuse, oppression, and even genocide, are being circulated as uncritically through newspaper media headlines as Bush’s war frami...

Gatekeeping and citizen journalism: The use of social media during the recent uprisings in Iran, Egypt, and Libya

Abstract: This critical study focuses on three major conflicts involving protests in the Middle East and North Africa. From a theoretical perspective, this research expands the study of gatekeeping by examining the characteristics of gatekeeping practices by citizen journalists. Overall findings suggest traditional ‘gatekeepers’ continue to maintain the status quo regarding news about conflict zones.