Summary Media and War - Universiteit Leiden - Minor Global Affairs
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Module
Media and war (8910GA009Y)
Institution
Universiteit Leiden (UL)
Summary includes:
- Lecture notes from weeks 1 through 7
- Notes on the 3 documentaries
- Summary of the books We Are Bellingcat, War is a Force that Gives us Meaning, and the book No Good Men Among the Living
Week 1: The role of war in history: definitions, theories, and analysis.
The development of the modern war correspondent – from the Crimean War in the 1850s till the present day.
Ian Morris
● War has made humanity safer and richer
○ A more organized society reduces the risk of violent death
○ 10 times less likely to die violently
● Suppressing violence to stay in power
→ It took the EU til 1970 to get back to the standards of 1940. So, is war making itself run out of business?
Norbert Elias
Civilizing process, 1939: Society is increasingly encouraged to behave normally with more rules of conduct.
People must learn to control themselves and take others into account. This requires self-control and self-direction
because there is not always external pressure.
● The level of violence has declined
Steven Pinker
● We as humans have become less prone to violence
○ War has become less political
○ Ministry of War and Ministry of Defense
Journalism
All journalism was politically motivated, but the telegraph made the
news different because agencies could sell the stories to more
institutions. So the writing had to become more aligned with the
Inverted Pyramid.
● Stories could be cut after the lead
● Pyramid took out opinion and made the story news
Journalism in general:
● It is a business with the goal of making money
● The stories had the goal to:
○ Let people make more informed choices
○ To hold people in power accountable for their decisions
○ To give voice to the people
○ And to entertain
War of Crimea
● Orthodox Russians vs. Catholic France
● Britain went to war to gain control over all seas
● 50 years of the British Navy ruling the seas
● In the war, many people died of sickness (80% of the British troops)
→ First time that war correspondents were allowed to join the Brits
→ First time the public opinion had to be taken into account
William Howard Russell (Irish journalist)
● British troops didn’t want him around, so they cut down his tent and gave him no food
● Had to wear something different than the troops
● His dispatch led to the fall of the British government, but this was no news the Brits would be proud of.
Leaving him to question whether to write the truth or what they want to hear.
Roger Fenton (photographer)
● The aftermath charge of the light brigade was the first war photograph
● Was not allowed to show dead bodies
● Were stand-still pictures of troops posing
● During the Civil War, the machine gun was invented
○ This was 50 years before WWI, so later they had the machinery but not the knowledge to use
these weapons in WWI
,Robert Capa and Gerda Taro (photographers)
● During the Spanish Civil War, the Age of Ideology started
● Journalists could only be supporters of one side
● They took pictures during D-Day in Normandy
○ Photo of the Falling soldier
○ A major moment in the war, the worst beach for America
The London Blitz
● Radio made it possible to report on things directly, one could only use the sounds to describe the events
● Independent news with huge influence
Martha Gellhorn
● Spanish civil war, accompanied America
● ‘It is hard to describe what you feel when you feel ashamed of mankind.’
Eddie Adams
● Saigon execution
● Most wars were anti-colonialism and hard to report on due to their brutality
● First heliborne war with the freedom to report on
● War was lost due to the press. Which led to a huge change in the coverage of news on wars.
, Week 2: The first Gulf War (1990-91)
Soviet Union
The idea of a nuclear war hung above the US which started the threat of the Cold War. It made the world bipolar
and divided.
● Wars of decolonization
● Countries along the edges were the biggest players
● Signs of unrest during the soviet take-ver:
○ Divide of Berlin by Stalin
○ 1956 Hungarian Revolution
○ Trade union in Poland
→ Chornobyl exploded in Ukraine due to faulty obstruction and it not being run well. This showed that the SU
could not be trusted.
Perestrojka and Glasnatov
Reform within the SU led to the European 9/11: the Fall of the Berlin Wall
● Was the symbol of the east/west divide
● Started revolutions in many countries after the war
● Made the world have only 1 superpower, without using their army became the global cop
● Everything seemed possible, madness due to the new world order
1990
The West was focused on what was happening in the East and the US, wondering what to do with the institutions
involved. Because what happens to the UN and NATO now that the opponent has disappeared?
Iraq
●British colonialism created Iraq and Kuwait
●Their invasion created a lot of panic in the West
●Birts made a king but kept him under their control so that they could keep the roads to India under their
control
From the beginning there was resilience
● Iraq had a large ethnic-religious divide making it a complex country
○ This made the British take-over a difficult reality
● Ba'ath party of Saddam Hussein made it a one-party state
● Iraq was dependent on their oil, leading to a war with Israel and an oil ban from the US
○ Autovrije zondag
● Iraq paid for the education of its civilians
Christopher Hitchens
Explains the 1979 take-ver by Saddam Hussein
● Iraq was a republic of fear under the power of Saddam Hussein
● He took over control on live TV by letting members of his party betray the other party’s regime
● Total regime, complete control
→ Mukhabarat
Iran
Islamic revolution led to conflict with the US. Even held the US ambassador hostage.
→ 1980: Iraq invaded Iran under Hussein because he thought they were weak
● War lasted 8 years, with 2 million deaths, Trenches
● Saddam Hussein and Donald Rumsfeld
○ The US helped Iraq fight the war
○ West saw Itan as a threat because of their Islamic regime
○ Iraq war was financed mostly by other countries
→ In 1984 Iraq became bankrupt due to the war and Saddam owd a lot of money to the Gulf states
● Oil prices went down, so Hussein threatened Kuwait to produce less oil
● Eventually invaded Kuwait
● The US was invaded by SA because they were scared of being invaded by Iraq
● US wanted to make it an international coalition, they hoped for unanimity in the Security Council of the
UN to back up the threat to throw Iranians out of Iraq
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