War and the Media

Mass communication is used by governments to support their war efforts while media images are created or manipulated to inform, persuade or guide the consumers of those images. But this book looks beyond the obvious. The contributors examine historical and contemporary examples that reflect the role of the media or mass communication or both during wartime. The essays highlight the centrality of communication to the perpetuation and to the resolution of war, suggesting that the symbiotic relationship between communication and war is as important to understand as war itself.

Paul M. Haridakis is an associate professor at Kent State University. He lives in Akron, Ohio.

Barbara Hugenberg is an assistant professor at Kent State University. She lives in Kent, Ohio.

Stanley T. Wearden is dean of the College of Communication and Information at Kent State University. He lives in Kent, Ohio.

Edited by Paul M. Haridakis , Barbara S. Hugenberg and Stanley T. Wearden

Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 265
Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2009
pISBN: 978-0-7864-4607-0
eISBN: 978-0-7864-5460-0
Imprint: McFarland

Preface      1
Introduction: The Impact of War on Communication Theory, Research, and the Field of Communication
The Editors      3

Part I: Images in Popular Culture
Protest Music as Alternative Media During the Vietnam War Era
Richard A. Lee      24
Created Heroes, Humanized Soldiers, and Superior Western Values: Fantasy Theme Analysis of Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima
Koji Fuse and James E. Mueller      41
Ghosts of Vietnam: Filmic Representations of Unconsummated American Heroism in the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century
Wesley J. O’Brien      57
Drawn-Out Battles: Exploring War-Related Messages in Animated Cartoons
Rekha Sharma      75

Part II: Institutional Propaganda Messages
Economic Convergence and the Celebration of Mass Production: The World War II Advertising Campaign to Sell Jeeps
Kathleen German      92
“You Boys and Girls Can Be the Minute Men of Today”: Narrative Possibility and Normative Appeal in the U.S. Treasury’s 1942 War Victory Comics
James J. Kimble and Trischa Goodnow      112
Inspecting the Rhetorical Arsenal: The War Frame in Nazi Germany’s der Kampf and America’s War on Terror
Roy Schwartzman      126
An Enduring Legacy of World War I: Propaganda, Journalism and the Domestic Struggle over the Commodification of Truth
Burton St. John III      147

Part III: Effects of News Coverage
Coverage of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars in Business Magazines: The Profit and Economy of U.S. War and Policy
Karen Rohrbauck Stout      164
“New Mexico’s Always Been Patriotic and Loyal to the Country”: Uncritical Journalistic Patriotism in Wartime
David Weiss      183
Embedded Reporting and Audience Response: Parasocial Interaction and Perceived Realism in Embedded Reporting from the Iraq War on Television News
M. F. Casper and Jeffrey T. Child      205
Prince Harry and the Afghanistan Media Blackout
Terri Toles Patkin      222

Part IV: Future
Cyberwar: The Future of War?
Brett Lunceford      238

About the Contributors      253
Index      257