It was interesting to understand in time that animals, plants and children were never made of paper and adults started wearing costumes and masks of papier-mâché only when they wanted to be something they were incapable of, and when they knowingly tried to convince others of their worth or unknowingly believed in their genuine worth. Tearing up this last group of people was the most amusing part of my task, since till the very last second they would think that they were, in fact, real. That day, as I entered the conference room a man in his fifties was talking about a subject that had been attacked by many others before. He talked in a soft voice that had a sort of compassionate timbre and an overwhelming modesty to it. When asked a question, he would turn to the questioner with his whole body and answer all points one by one, without faltering. He saw me enter the room, but he didn’t avoid my eyes and welcomed me with a smile, contrary to all previous speakers –real or paper- since I became famous. I listened patiently to the very end and observed his movements.

Finally I stood up. Feeling the pride of my colleagues’ looks, I walked and stopped right in front of the speaker. He was surprised. As I lifted my arm to touch his shoulder he took a step back, and he waved his head as if saying no and smiled at me with the most kindhearted eyes I have ever seen. I returned his smile with malicious disdain and I pressed on to grab his shoulder. As I touched his arm, I felt that it was harder than most paper people, which gave me more joy knowing that I caught a very good impostor. Then, I felt a cold in my palm and saw that my fingers were falling to the floor. The speaker, as if expecting this, held my arm and made me crouch with him, being very careful to hide all this from the audience, picked the broken clay pieces off the floor and put them in my hand. He once again looked at me with the most kindhearted eyes.

Wartime coverage

For big institutions that need to deal with the media, buying advertisements through media outlets is a common way to avoid being attacked by the media and sponsoring programs is a good device for using the media as PR agents. After some bad experiences with the media in the Korean War and worse experiences in the Vietnam War, the US military determined to harness the power of the media. Like any other service-providers keen to establish and maintain the popularity of their products, the military sought to advertise their services: patriotism, heroism, military might and, of course, war. During the Gulf War they played the role of an advertising client of the media, especially the broadcast media, and, in effect, sponsored a live war spectacle in the Persian Gulf. Thousands of soldiers and innocent civilians made up the cast for a show which attracted millions to their TV screens. It was a masterpiece of collaboration between the army and the media.

In order to sustain government and national policies, especially in ‘democratic’ countries, public support is vital, and today the media monopolize this power of persuasion. We can see power centres attempting to control media as early as the 1400s. When Gutenberg invented the printing press, the Roman Catholic Church saw this tool being used to undermine the papal authority, and declared it as ‘evil.’ During the second half of the twentieth century, especially in democratic countries like the US, the broadcasting media have themselves become a major power centre. Since the majority of the intellectuals in these countries regard the media as a ‘watchdog’ over the actions of government, the media exercise tremendous political authority as well as economic power. Since very few, if any, major policy decisions can be made without media approval, government needs to reconcile itself to the media rather than control them. Indeed, whoever needs the media’s ‘seal of approval’ must appeal to the media.

Except for government financed channels, all media outlets are commercial and the goal of channels like ABC, NBC, and CNN is making profit, rather than playing the ‘watchdog’ role. Inevitably, the ‘watchdog’ role is often compromised by the need to make profit. A well-known example of this in the past was the relationship between the media and the cigarette industry. Cigarette companies paid huge amounts of money to the media which encouraged them not to discuss the harmful side- effects of smoking. ‘Information concerning the hazards of cigarette smoking was available as early as 1938 but was ignored, censored or played down by the media to such an extent that, even two decades later, only 44 percent of the people thought smoking was a cause of lung cancer’ (Jensen, 1993, p.212). In exchange for some benefits, the media can be manipulated to hide information and sometimes even give false information. Such a case occurred during the Reagan administration: each of the three big networks ABC, CBS and NBC was acquired by corporations that might have been unqualified under earlier FCC standards which Reagan lifted. In return, the big media dispensed relentlessly positive news about Reaganism and the great trickle-down dream (ibid., p.25). Furthermore, by writing positive news, ‘government lying was too willingly supported by the media’ (ibid., p.26). The general public are quite ignorant of the extent of distortion and false reporting. We are not speaking of hiding some few government blunders but of giving erroneous background information to favour a declaration of war or the application of murderously punitive economic sanctions against a country. Seriously independent, investigative journalists, such as those who publish annually The Censored Year Book, document many cases of disinformation and misinformation by the US media on serious issues that involve loss of human life. 

Following what they saw as the bias of the media during the Korean and Vietnam Wars, the American military made a study of the weak points of the media, as of an enemy. In particular, they realized that the media’s concern to find the most interesting, up- to-date and spectacular news so that their channel would be viewed by large audiences was more important to them than their ‘watchdog’ role: ‘the larger the audience, the more they can charge for advertising’ (Fitzgerald). The media’s need for high ratings made them vulnerable to bargaining pressure, which the military exploited as any business interest would. War crimes and horrors were not to be shown, if the media wanted access to the international which would secure their audience ratings. The media’s capacity to present war as a big show was first realized (and managed) by British officials during the Falklands conflict. They knew that if the media were denied other alternatives than showing the official propaganda footage, they would use the propaganda rather than have nothing to broadcast. The British experience became the pattern for US military officials who set up a new, semi-formal code for US media and military relations. Following the Falklands pattern, military officials in charge of the Grenada, Panama and Gulf wars made it clear to media executives (through, for example such agreements as the Pentagon’s ten-page list of rules, revised in January 1991) that if they did not misbehave by revealing war crimes or US casualties they would have access to their military show and would make some profit. The deal suited both sides. CNN Executive Vice-President Ed Turner said:‘In the end, we are going to co-operate [with the US military]’ (Sukow, 1991) revealing his desire not to miss the chance to air the curious military show about to happen in the Arabian desert. However, it was not a show, it was a war. As a result, just as arguments for a non-military resolution were denied prominence, so too the unpleasant realities of the imposed military resolution, including the loss of human life, were hidden from a world-wide audience.

Conclusion

The military evolved tactics against the media to influence them as they had once influenced the military, began with the Korean War. Until the beginning of the end of the Vietnam War, the relations continued in the same pattern. Following the British example in the Falklands, the US military had their own model of media control in place before the Grenada invasion, and had made it more effective still for the Panama invasion. During the Gulf War, in the latest phase of these evolving tactics, there began a new level of almost overt commercial co-operation between the US military and the US mass media.

Today media and military planners work together on the battlefield. In the Gulf War, reflecting on the effort the broadcasting companies and other mass media put into advertising the war and attaining public support for it, we can say that correspondents seemed as if they were working as members of the army: the media functioned as a department of the military with the task of achieving public support for the victory. The co-operation between the army and news media succeeded. In the Gulf War, many reprehensible acts were committed by the US and its allies such as the bombing of civilian targets, including shelters and apartments, or concocting lies in order to make propaganda against the enemy seem legitimate. Sometimes this was even done by means of the President, George Bush. However, the war was legitimized in the eyes of the US public, and also in the eyes of many people all around the world.

In the past, the relationship between the military and the media was not so close. For the sake of getting good and interesting coverage, in many cases, the media harmed the aims of the military by exposing their failures or wrong actions, such as in the Vietnam War. In response, military and government offices increased censorship and stopped media access to military and governmental sources. After a long struggle and animosity between the media and the military, they appear to have become wholly reconciled in a mode of co-operation beneficial for both sides: exciting coverage and an international audience for the media and unquestioning public support for the military and government policies. Today the media, knowingly or unknowingly, function as the US Army’s PR agent, and in return the military gives them an important and exciting international event to report, which everyone is curious to see: war.

References

• FITZGERALD, J. (1995) ‘Aesthetics & Media Criticism’. Lecture in Emerson College, Media Criticism Aesthetics course, January 19.
• JENSEN, C. (1993) The News That Didn’t Make the News and Why, The 1993 Censored Year Book, Sheburne Press.
• KARNOW, S. (1984) Vietnam: A History. The first Complete Account of Vietnam at War, Penguin Books, New York, NY, p.23.
• LEE, R. S.H. (1978) ‘Early Korean War Coverage’, Journalism Quarterly, 55, pp.789fl93.
• MARTINI, L. Director. Lines in the Sand. Griffin-Wirth Assoc. c.1991.
• SHARKLEY, J. (1991) Under Fire, The Centre for Public Integrity, pp.614.
• SUKOW, M. R. (1991) ‘The Storm and the Eye’, Broadcasting, January 14.

Together with massive campaigns to promote Western products, such story-lines and images, perpetuate the inferiorized stereotypes that used to be taught openly in the nineteenth century. Films especially can be seen as an arm of economic domination: ‘Because every film is a part of the economic system, it is also part of the ideological system… cinema and art are branches of ideology. None can escape; somewhere, like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, all have their allotted place’ (Nicholls, 1976, vol.1, p.24).

Because the US got the edge over the Europeans in the mass-market film industry, Hollywood and what it stands for have often been accused, even by Europeans, of cultural imperialism. The English as well as the French often complain that the norms of popular culture in their countries have been ‘taken over’ by the Americans. But the fact is that the success of American styles has been largely due to their commercial skill and power relative to English and French products. In no sense can it be claimed that the American popular culture industry portrays the French or the English negatively. By contrast, it is true to say that Western cinema, particularly American cinema, portrays Orientals, especially Muslims, negatively as a matter of course. All easy, popular stories have goodies and baddies, but must the baddies so often be foreigners and need the foreigners be culturally foreign? In order to be popular, popular films reinforce popular stereotypes-it is a vicious circle, at least for its victims. For those who manage such images, popular cinema is a powerful instrument of cultural suppression and domination. As one writer maintains, the virtual monopoly Hollywood has enjoyed for the last quarter century has made it the single most powerful advocate and purveyor of a simplified, homogenized American culture (Collins, 1989).

Within this Hollywood style in particular, there has been a consistent Middle Eastern stereotype-Arab or Arab-Palestinian, or Turk or Iranian-with negative physical and moral characteristics- lustful, fanatical, irrational, cruel, scheming, unreliable, often cowardly, and always outwitted and defeated. The adventurer-hero, once in the Flash Gordon style of noble warrior on the side of the good (in simple contrast to arch-enemy Ming the Merciless, an Oriental tyrant), is now, typically, a morally imperfect figure, nevertheless worthy of the audience’s full sympathy. The ‘James Bond’ character of the sixties and seventies remains by far the most successful hero-formula. He was designed for British and American audiences to identify with: ‘he is worldly, has diverse but specialized expertise, and has a passion for excitement. He is self-reliant, proud, wedded to privacy, honest, candid, loyal, a man of honour…’ (Simon, 1989). This figure exemplifies, in a form appropriate to the genre of comic caricature, the virtues and ethos which are supposed to give the British and the Americans their directness and sense of humour, their get-up-and-go, their problem-solving success. The villain-figures altogether lack positive characteristics, even any energy or wit they have is of a mad, evil-genius type; their characters lack any exposition; they have no past, their only present is to pose the challenge to the hero. It follows that no audience, not even the non- British/American audience can possibly do otherwise than identify, through the momentum of the story, with the hero and the ethos he represents.

Among recent historical films which have to do with Muslim lands and people, the most popular have been Lawrence of Arabia, Death on the Nile, Midnight Express, and Robin Hood. Of these, only the first has any substantial claim to be a serious, well-made film. In it, Lawrence, a British army officer, stationed in Cairo during World War I, works to ally the Sharif of Makka with the British against the Turks. The Arabs are presented as bumbling, loud, unruly primitives with some barbarian dignity but, in the end, easily bribed, easily tricked. The Turks are utterly vile and disgusting with no saving qualities of any kind. Indeed, the Turkish Pasha in Egypt is, in addition to being, ugly, foul and aggressive, a sodomite- characteristics flatly contradicted by historical evidence (Kirkbride, 1956). The fact that Lawrence was a British spy with very British images about the desert, about Arabs, Turks and Muslims in general, never enters into the film or the consciousness of its audience-there is not the slightest hint that the events might be presented from another point of view and so tell quite a different story. For all the undeniable beauty of some scenes, this film well illustrates the general point made by Raymond Williams that, in spite of their being artistic, works of art still serve an ideological function, that is, serve as propaganda (Williams, 1982). Embedded in Lawrence of Arabia there are all the usual distortions, political and cultural, which less artistic films present also, but crudely.

Midnight Express has been widely and continuously shown since its production in 1978. Though shot mostly in a nineteenth-century British barracks in Malta, the film is set in Istanbul which comes over as a most depressing place – a shock surely for anyone who has actually visited it. David Putnam, the director, freely admits that the film is based on a ‘dishonest book’ (Shipman, 1984, vol.2, p.1103). It wholly misrepresents what really happened to Billy Hase who was sentenced in Turkey for drug smuggling: the story implies that he was innocent; it makes much of his escape, though he was released under an amnesty agreement’ (ibid.). The quality of the director’s attention to the Islamic setting can be judged from the scene in which hairy- eared Hamidou (the actor is in fact an American) is whipping Jimmy with a leather belt while some other Turks are praying to Allah – Jimmy’s yells of pain provide the ‘music’ to the praying chorus (Kael, 1980, p.498).

Much the same kind of attention (and the same intention) is evident in the opening scene of Robin Hood: in a gloomy atmosphere the call to prayer rises from a minaret in Jerusalem, then an abrupt ‘cut’ to a filthy prison where an executioner is chopping off the hand of a prisoner – an illustration for the audience of Islamic justice. The point of these and similar devices of narrative and plot of setting, colour, tone and music – many examples could be given – is not only to present an image of Islam and Muslims that is as negative and humiliating as possible. It is also intended to contrast that negative with the positive virtues of the Western characters portrayed within the same story: the audience are required (and expected) to conclude that ‘the Americans, and the Englishmen and the Swedes, are civilized and sensitive…’ (Kael, 1980, p.498).

References

• COLLINS, J. (1959) Uncommon cultures: Popular Culture and Post Modernism, Routledge, London.
• KAEL, P. (1980) When the lights Go Down, Holt, Rinehart & Wilson, New York.
• KIRKBRIDE, Sir As. (1956) A Crackle of Thorns: Experiences in the Middle East, John Murray, London.
• NICHOLLS, B. (1976) (ed.) Movies and Methods, University of California Press.
• SHIPMAN, D. (1984) The Story of Cinema, Hodder & Stoughton, London..
• SIMON, S.R. (1989) The Middle East in Crime Fiction, Lilian Barber Press, New York.
• WILLIAMS, R. (1982) The Sociology of Culture, Fontana, London.