The political phenomenology of war reporting

Datos Bibliográficos

ID7478263
AutoresTim Markham (0000-0002-7304-2610, Birkbeck, University of London, autor de correspondencia)
Año2011
Volumen12
Número5
Páginas567-585
Fecha de publicación2011-07-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournalism (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1464-8849 • E-ISSN: 1741-3001
EditorialSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1464884911410016
OpenAlexW1991470401
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas13
Referencias citadas27

Drawing on interviews with war correspondents, editors and political and military personnel, this article investigates the political dimension of the structuration and structuring effects of the reporter’s experience of journalism. Self-reflection and judgements about colleagues confirm that there are dominant norms for interpreting and acting in conflict scenarios which, while contingent upon socio-historical context, are interpreted as natural. But the prevalence of such codes masks the systematically misrecognized symbolic systems of mystification and ambivalence — systems which reproduce hierarchies and gatekeeping structures in the field, but which are either experienced as unremarkable, dismissed with irony and cynicism, or not present to the consciousness of the war correspondent. The article builds on recent theories of journalistic disposition, ideology, discourse and professionalism, and describes the political dimension of journalistic practice perceived in the field as apolitical. It addresses the gendering of war correspondence, the rise of the journalist as moral authority, and questions the extent to which respondent reflections can be defensibly analytically determined

Ambivalence · Context (archaeology · Cynicism · Epistemology · Field (mathematics · Gatekeeping · Ideology · Journalism · Media studies · Phenomenology (philosophy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Media Studies and Communication · Psychology · Public Relations and Crisis Communication · Rhetoric and Communication Studies · History · Law · Social Psychology