War Fatigue? Selective Compassion and Questionable Ethics in Mainstream Reporting on Afghanistan and Iraq
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12980240 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Vaheed Ramazani (Tulane University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2013 |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 5-24 |
| Publication date | 2013-02-25 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Middle East Critique (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1943-6149 • E-ISSN: 1943-6157 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/19436149.2012.755297 |
| OpenAlex | W1992993100 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 13 |
This paper asks to what extent the mainstream press may be responsible for the American public's lack of moral and emotional investment in US counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Reviewing the stagnating effect that conventional journalistic practices recently have had on American foreign policy in the Middle East, and considering in particular the kinds of information that mainstream print and broadcast outlets tend to overlook, suppress, or misrepresent, I argue that the obstacles to compassionate and educative reporting on international conflicts are not merely geographic, economic, or logistical; nor are they necessarily rooted in unbridgeable ethnic, linguistic, or sociopolitical divisions. More accurately, they are ideological, in ways that tend tobut do not have tocorroborate and facilitate the kinds of evolutionary biases that have been demonstrated by recent social, anthropological, and philosophical studiesbiases favoring one's own culture, race, and class. I conclude that the mainstream press has a more strenuous obligation to counter the pressures of phylogeny, ideology, and political expediency that have shaped America's popular and political discourses on the global war on terror. While the press (like other social institutions) cannot simply shed the powerful influences of nature and culture, it does have the capacity to transform the discursive terrain on which it stands, to turn away from habits and assumptions that have proven poorly adapted to changing historical circumstances and to embrace a more cosmopolitan conception of international law and ethics
Compassion · Criminology · Iraq war · Mainstream · Political science · Spanish Civil War · War on terror · Health and Conflict Studies · Law · Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East · Psychology · War, Ethics, and Justification
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| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,75 |
| Citation span | 2022 - 2026 (5) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |