Digital War Reporting

By: Donald Matheson (University of Canterbury, New Zealand) and Stuart Allan (Bournemouth University

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• Table of Contents
• Author Information

Description

Digital War examines war reporting in a digital age. It shows how new technologies open up innovative ways for journalists to convey the horrors of warfare while, at the same time, creating opportunities for propaganda, censorship and control. Topics discussed include:

• How is the role of the war reporter evolving as digital technologies become ever more prominent?
• What is the rhetoric of war in digital journalism? How does an emphasis on liveness, immediacy or realness shape public perceptions of the nature of warfare itself?
• Is technology widening the gap between 'us' and 'them', or are new kinds of empathy being established with distant others as time, space and place are effectively compressed?

A key focus is journalists' use of digital imagery, real-time video and audio reports, multimedia databases – as well as satellites, broadband, podcasting, and mobile telephones – in the reporting of a range of wars, conflicts and crises. The examples analysed range from 24-hour television news coverage of the Persian Gulf War, the first 'internet war' in Kosovo, digital photography, from September 11 to Abu Ghraib, and bloggers in Iraq, including journalists, soldiers and ordinary citizens.

Digital War is required reading for students, researchers and journalists.

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* Exam copies only available to lecturers for whom the book may be suitable as a course text.
Please note: Sales representation and distribution for Polity titles is provided by John Wiley and Sons Ltd.

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Reviews

"This is an incisive and often gripping study of how digital media transform coverage of conflict. For those who study the evolving relationship between war and journalism, Digital War Reporting is essential reading."
Philip Seib, University of Southern California

"If satellite television muddied the wartime distinction between 'us' and 'them,' newer digital technologies make it even more problematic. Matheson and Allan deftly critique these developments, revealing the moral and political dimensions of war reporting transmitted through these new forms of personal, social and journalistic expression."
Stephen D. Reese, University of Texas

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Table of Contents

Chapter One: New wars, new reporting

Chapter Two: The ‘first Internet war’

Chapter Three: Conflicted realities

Chapter Four: The citizen journalist at war

Chapter Five: Visual truths: Images in war time

Chapter Six: Making connections: the politics of mediation

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Author Information

Donald Matheson, Senior Lecturer in Mass Communication, University of Canterbury, New Zealand

Stuart Allan, Professor of Journalism, Bournemouth University

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