Report X Marks the Spot: The British Government's Deceptive Dossier on Iraq and WMD

Herring, Eric; Robinson, Piers

doi:10.1002/polq.12252

Cited by 25 publications

(22 citation statements)

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“…2 Though 'truth' is a portentous term, from a more practical point of view, what matters most is that there are claims that intersubjectively can be categorized as 'false' or 'correct'. For example, we can decide whether there are certain elements in a health care plan (Pasek, Sood, & Krosnick, 2015); whether the US and UK governments had information about WMDs before it attacked Iraq (Gershkoff & Kushner, 2005;Herring & Robinson, 2014); or whether there is scientific evidence on vaccines causing autism (Dixon & Clarke, 2013;Kata, 2010). We can also decide whether former President Obama is a Muslim or a foreigner (Crawford & Bhatia, 2012;Hollander, 2010) or whether Donald Trump sued former customers of Trump University who wanted to get their money back.…”

Section: Concern 5: Towards Increasing Relativismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While Kovach and Rosenstiel (2007) note that journalists' search for the truth is a process fraught with problems, they compare the news making process to a conversation with the public in which journalists should flag any misinformation, disinformation or self-promoting information. Most scholars also agree that journalists have a responsibility to make a clear distinction between facts and opinions (Goldstein, 2007;Patterson, 2013), although some stress that the responsibility lies with political actors (Herring & Robinson, 2014;Maurer & Reinemann, 2006). Many news media are however aware of the problem, reacting to the perceived increase in false or misleading information floating around by introducing various factchecking formats and websites.…”

Section: Concern 5: Towards Increasing Relativismmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Political communication in a high-choice media environment: a challenge for democracy?

Aelst

Strömbäck

Aalberg

et al. 2017

Annals of the International Communication Association

637

347

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During the last decennia media environments and political communication systems have changed fundamentally. These changes have major ramifications for the political information environments and the extent to which they aid people in becoming informed citizens. Against this background, the purpose of this article is to review research on key changes and trends in political information environments and assess their democratic implications. We will focus on advanced postindustrial democracies and six concerns that are all closely linked to the dissemination and acquisition of political knowledge: (1) declining supply of political information, (2) declining quality of news, (3) increasing media concentration and declining diversity of news, (4) increasing fragmentation and polarization, (5) increasing relativism and (6) increasing inequality in political knowledge. ARTICLE HISTORY

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Section: Concern 5: Towards Increasing Relativismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Concern 5: Towards Increasing Relativismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Political communication in a high-choice media environment: a challenge for democracy?

Aelst

Strömbäck

Aalberg

et al. 2017

Annals of the International Communication Association

637

347

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This occurs most obviously during wars initiated by powerful states, as witnessed in recent years during the influential 'public relations' campaigns led by the US and UK governments aimed at convincing domestic and international audiences about the threat posed by Iraq. 72 Other recent research has highlighted the ways in which powerful states shape media and public understandings of conflicts such as the 1994 Rwandan Genocide 73 and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. 74 Future research can go further to study organised persuasive communication 75 campaigns by great powers and how these are variously adopted, contested, or rejected by local, national, and global media.…”

Section: Multilevel Hybridity: Five Research Streamsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moving media and conflict studies beyond the CNN effect

et al. 2016

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After the 'CNN effect' concept was coined two decades ago, it quickly became a popular shorthand to understand media-conflict interactions. Although the connection has probably always been more complex than what was captured in the concept, research needs to be updated in order to better understand the multifaceted contemporary environments of both media and conflict. There are growing numbers and types of media sources, and multiple interactions between media and conflict actors, policymakers and engaged publics from the local to the global and back. We argue that understanding the impact of media reporting on conflict requires a new framework that captures the multilevel and hybrid media environments of contemporary conflicts. This study provides a roadmap of how to systematically unpack this environment. It describes and explains how different levels, interactions, and forms of news reporting shape conflicts and peacebuilding in local, national and regional contexts, and how international responses interact with multiple media narratives. With these tools, comprehensive understandings of contemporary local to global media interactions can be incorporated into new research on media and conflict.

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“…The dossier was, to all intent and purpose, an act of deception. 68 The news media reported its publication giving particular attention to the claim that Iraqi WMD could be ready »within 45 minutes of an order to use them« (Prime Ministers Office, 2002); »Brits 45 minutes from doom« was one newspaper's headline. Currently, and against the backdrop of failing military engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan, interest in the concept of strategic narratives as a way of shaping and influencing people has become common.…”

Section: Contemporary Approaches To Influence and Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Little attempt is made to consider the extent to which the information being passed on by officials has already been through a process of manipulation and modification which is highly organised, directed, and which frequently, although not always, involves forms of deception, including lying, distortion and omission. 71 Indeed, the deceptive and coercive dimensions of these campaigns are also not well understood by political communication researchers 72 . Perhaps most worryingly, recent figures from the Pew Research Centre show that, following years of cut backs at the major media organisations, so-called »public relations« (PR) experts, i.e.…”

Section: Contemporary Approaches To Influence and Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

Media empowerment vs. strategies of control: Theorising news media and war in the 21st Century

Robinson¹

2014

ZfP

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Media empowerment vs. strategies of control: Theorising news media and war in the 21 st Century OverviewConflict defined the 20 th century with the two world wars shaping the geo-political context for almost the entire century. The 21 st century has seen no let up, with two major US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan dominating the foreign policy agendas of Western governments and the militarised response, the so-called »war on terror«, to groups such as Al Qaeda. At the same time, the last 100 years have witnessed the rapid emergence of new forms of mass communication, including wireless radio, newsreels and cinema, mass circulation newspapers, television and the Internet. Right from the start, the power of communication in wartime was fully recognised: From the deployment of Nazi propaganda masterminded by Goebbels through to the creation of the Ministry of Information in Britain, tasked with the »maintenance of moral«, media became an integral part of national war efforts. Today, governments devote significant resources in order to shape the information environment in their favour and, in doing so, win a global battle for »hearts and minds«. This article provides an overview and assessment of the ways in which political communication scholarship has sought to understand and explain the importance of news media vis-à-vis war and international politics. The aim is to review existing approaches that have shaped debates over the last 30 years and to critically evaluate the significance of major contemporary debates over new communication technology and organised persuasive communication (also frequently referred to as propaganda, perception management or strategic communication). Of course, news media are only one part of much broader communications media and analysis of mediums such as cinema and popular entertainment are of importance. But news media, including its contemporary online variants, remain the central site upon which information about war and conflict is disseminated. For this reason much of the relevant scholarship focuses on news media and this fact is reflected in the contents of this article. The article proceeds in three sections. The first section reviews the elite-driven orthodoxy that has traditionally informed our understanding of wartime media-state relations.

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Report X Marks the Spot: The British Government's Deceptive Dossier on Iraq and WMD

Cited by 25 publications

References 1 publication

Political communication in a high-choice media environment: a challenge for democracy?

Political communication in a high-choice media environment: a challenge for democracy?

Moving media and conflict studies beyond the CNN effect

Media empowerment vs. strategies of control: Theorising news media and war in the 21st Century

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