Katy Parry

A visual framing analysis of British press photography during the 2006 Israel- Lebanon conflict:

This article develops a model of visual framing analysis through an examination of the photographic representation of the 2006 Israel—Lebanon conflict. The intentions of this investigation are twofold: first, to compare and contrast the use of press photographs in two ‘quality’ British newspapers — The Times and The Guardian; second, to develop and test a model of visual framing analysis which takes seriously both the visual elements and verbal context of the photographs. The study employs a detailed content and framing analysis of all press photographs relevant to the conflict, with the following questions in mind: What is the character of photographic representation of both sides in the conflict and how does it fit with various moral evaluations and political interpretations of the war? Which groups are shown in an empathetic light? Is there any coherence to the framing of the war, or are many alternative explanations presented?

War and Media

Andrew Hoskins, Televising War: from Vietnam to Iraq. London and New York: Continuum, 2004, 148 pp. David Domke, God Willing? Political Fundamentalism in the White House, the War on Terror and the Echoing Press. London: Pluto Press, 2004, 240 pp. Philip Knightley, The First Casualty: The War Correspondent as Hero, Propagandist and Myth-maker from the Crimea to Iraq. London: André Deutsch, 2003, 594 pp. David Miller (ed.), Tell Me Lies: Propaganda and Media Distortion in the Attack on Iraq. London and Sterling, VA: Pluto, 2004, 310 pp.

Political Imagery in the British General Election of 2010: The Curious Case of ‘Nick Clegg’

This article examines the figurative appropriations of Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, drawing on a selective audit from newspapers, television, radio and blogs during the 2010 general election period. The flurry of excitement produced by Cleggs sudden visibility during the election campaign offers a unique opportunity to observe the hasty moulding of a new political persona. Across the mediascape, political commentators and humorists employed an expressive range of critique and humour to reflect on Cleggs new-found appeal. We present analysis of the various mediated attempts to ascribe to Clegg certain characteristics and values through the use of labelling, metaphor and other popular culture allusions. It is especially in the unpicking of the prevalent sexualised metaphor that our research prompts wider queries about the current mediation of British political culture.

Images of liberation? Visual framing, humanitarianism and British press photography during the 2003 Iraq invasion:

Although the 2003 Iraq invasion was not wholly framed as a ‘humanitarian intervention’, the rhetoric of bringing liberation, democratization and human rights to the Iraqi people was widely advanced by the coalition and supporters as a legitimating reason for war. This article assesses the role played by press photography in legitimizing or challenging this crucial framing during the invasion across a range of UK national newspapers. Privileging visual content in research design, the study presents selected results from a comprehensive content and framing analysis of press photography during the invasion period (March–April 2003), specifically examining the prominence and treatment of photographs in the humanitarian-related visual coverage, along with the accompanying words used to define, support or detract from the events depicted. While finding that the rationale of humanitarianism generally played well for the coalition during this study period, this article explores the problematic nature of the narrative of liberation.

Comedy, the Civic Subject, and Generic Mediation

This article explores the contribution of comedy to the mediation of politics in a number of genres outside the core forms of journalism. Using material collected during an extensive study of diverse media treatments of British politics, it raises questions about the functions that comedy performs within civic culture and civic subjectivity, giving emphasis to broadcasting. Selected accounts from respondent groups are used to investigate further the ways in which comedy contributes to the placing of politics within the everyday and to the naturalization, or questioning, of the power relations at work. The article concludes by suggesting that further work on comic treatments, alongside studies of other sources of political information and commentary, will be a valuable aspect of research on political culture.

(Extra)ordinary portraits: Self-representation, public culture and the contemporary British soldier

This article explores the contemporary image of the British soldier, especially where the opportunity for soldiers to tell their own stories is highlighted as the core justification in the presentation of co-produced materials. The authors consider the particular generic affordances, constraints and aesthetics of two recent projects, Our War (BBC 3) and War Story (Imperial War Museum), both of which hope to offer a ‘direct’ insight into soldiers’ experiences in Afghanistan, albeit through the lenses of public institutions which inevitably come with their own interpretive frameworks. At the heart of the study are the concept of self-representation and the idea of the portrait. The article examines recurrent themes, styles of portrayal and notable absences, asking, for example: how do the different dimensions of mediation constitute the soldiers as ‘ordinary’ and ‘extraordinary’? The authors argue that it is theoretically and empirically productive to analyse the two projects together as interconnected forms of a ‘genre of self-representation’.

'When he's in Afghanistan it's like our world/his world': mediating military experience

This article reports on a qualitative research project which invited those with direct experience – as serving personnel involved in media operations, military veterans and forces family members – to respond to a variety of media genres and discuss how such portrayals of military experience correspond with their own perceptions and their own representational practices. It is our contention that such mediations offer significant and interconnected spaces through which to explore negotiations of the meanings of military experience in contemporary public culture. Drawing on thematic analysis from our focus groups, we address a number of research questions: In what ways do the participants identify and engage with the various media portrayals, and how do they think this relates to the perceived public profile of the armed forces? How do they assess the capability of media texts to provide insights into the ‘realities’ of military experience (including emotionally charged moments of camaraderie and trauma)? In the multiple challenges and ambiguities heard within our groups, we find complex and troubled senses of ‘militariness’, bound up with sometimes intense affectivities.

Measuring media criticism of war and political elites: A response to Florian Zollmann

In his 2011 article, ‘Managing the elite consensus’, Florian Zollmann takes issue with a number of arguments put forward in Pockets of Resistance: British News Media, War and Theory in the 2003 Invasion of Iraq (Robinson et al., 2010). This book was the endproduct of a research project1 that examined UK television news and press coverage of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, focusing mainly on the invasion phase (mid-March to midApril). Our central conclusions were that most UK news outlets, for reasons of humanitarian warfare ideology, over-reliance upon official sources, and patriotism, failed to maintain their independence (pp.161–172). But we also noted that there were exceptions, and, due to factors such as professional autonomy, event-driven news and UK mediasystem characteristics, a minority of media outlets (Channel 4 News, The Mirror, The Guardian and The Independent) were able to exercise meaningful levels of independence from the government position (pp.172–176). We also noted that both patriotism and humanitarian warfare ideology were limiting factors on the degree of independence exercised by these media outlets (p.177). In criticising our account, Zollmann argues that by over-measuring media criticism, we incorrectly claim that UK media performance deviated, on occasions and across a minority of media outlets, from the predictions of elite-driven accounts of media-state relations (e.g. Herman and Chomsky, 1988). In this response, we first identify several issues in need of clarification and correction. We then pick up and expand on the matter of procedural vs substantive media criticism,

The media and the military: editorial

This editorial provides a brief overview of the wide range of work on media-military relations from different disciplinary areas internationally and indicates a number of prominent themes together with those needing further attention. It locates issues of media technology, form and use within the contexts of the political and public framing of military activities. Before introducing the contributing articles, it notes how different factors of change both inside and outside the institutions of the armed forces are shifting the terms of visibility, legitimacy and accountability.

Visualising the politics of appearance in times of democratisation: An analysis of the 2010 Belgrade Pride Parade television coverage:

The 2010 Belgrade Pride Parade represents a critical moment in the story of Serbia’s democratisation process and highlights the threat that right-wing extremism poses to democratic rights and personal freedoms. Through a focus on patterns of visibility and visuality in the coverage of different protagonists in the streets of Belgrade, we explore the ways in which distinct communities perform their affinities, their right to be seen in public spaces, and rejection of ‘the other’. We conduct a visual framing analysis across four news programmes (RTS, Prva TV, TV B92 and Pink TV), emphasising the stylistic-semiotic choices which work to construct the contested spaces of the city. In shifting attention to how the news images work to create the spaces of political ‘appearance’ and the potentials for political agency through mediated visibility, the article explores the uneasy ambivalence of the democratisation process for authorities and the resulting marginalisation of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in news coverage.