Media, War & Conflict

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Special Issue: Images of War

Shahira Fahmy
Media, War & Conflict 2010; 3; 3
DOI: 10.1177/1750635210353678

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 MWC
Guest Editor’s Note

Special Issue: Images of War Media, War & Conflict

3(1) 3–5
© The Author(s) 2010
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DOI: 10.1177/1750635210353678
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Shahira Fahmy
University of Arizona, USA

Images of war are politically powerful, which is why they have been contested and restricted
throughout history. According to Moeller (2009), images tell a more compelling story than
words, providing good reasons for governments’ traditional attempts to control images
either by not showing them to the public or by imposing tight restrictions on their use.
Interestingly, the emerging body of communication research has typically focused on
textual rather than visual content. Scholars of mass communication most often analyze
text at the expense of images, hence underplaying the significance of the visual in con-
necting with audiences. According to Messaris and Abraham (2001): ‘The special qualities
of visuals – their iconicity, their indexicality, and especially their syntactic implicitness –
make them very effective tools for framing and articulating ideological messages’
(p. 220, emphases in original). In other words, they suggest that visuals and text are distinct
yet equally important parts of the news-making process.
Despite recognizing the importance of images, only a few scholars have examined the
visual portrayal of news events. They found image choices dramatically influenced how
the audience perceived these events. Past studies have consistently shown that compet-
ing media outlets portray events in different ways, carefully selecting particular images
as visuals are consistently used to present specific views to the audience. This is particu-
larly true during times of crisis. In her recent book, Packaging Terrorism, Moeller (2009)
asserts that governments and their media have been generally interested in ‘distancing
their own citizens and audiences from the negative human consequences of their nations’
own policies – and are equally interested in emphasizing the human costs of their ene-
mies’ strategies’ (pp. 147–8).
The articles in this special issue of Media, War & Conflict provide readers with some
of the most up-to-date research in visual communication. Their authors incorporate the
idealized myths of war coverage, discussing the willingness to depict the realities of war
in the US and elsewhere, and they introduce some of the most innovative methodological
mechanisms and challenges that may be useful in exploring both the conceptual and the
analytical components of the visual coverage of war.

Corresponding author:
Shahira Fahmy, College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, School of Journalism, Department of Near
Eastern Studies, 845N Park Avenue, Marshall Building 325, PO Box 210158B, Tucson,  AZ 85721-0158, USA.
Email: sfahmy@email.arizona.edu

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4 Media,War & Conflict 3(1)

By using the term ‘images of war’, Griffin refers to any and all pictorial representa-
tions of warfare and its activities. In his article, he takes us through a historical voyage
of media’s representation of war and the creation of visual iconic symbols in the public
imagination. By exploring how dramatically charged images are valued by the news
media for their capacity to grab and hold viewer attention, he explores how images of
war have been used to accentuate and lend authority to war reporting since the early 20th
century. Griffin’s analysis considers the idealized ‘myth’ of the Vietnam War coverage
and how it has influenced photojournalism of US conflicts, skewing expectations of
wartime media performance.
Johnson and Fahmy provide an innovative examination of the degree to which visi-
tors to Al-Jazeera’s English-language website support broadcasters presenting graphic
and war-related imagery in comparison to users of the Al-Jazeera’s Arabic-language
website. The authors provide an overview of ethics and attitudes toward graphic and war-
related visuals. Based on a survey of 913 respondents that was posted on Al-Jazeera’s
English-language website, their results specified that visitors to that website overwhelm-
ingly supported the network’s decision to run graphic images and claimed the network
contained important information missing from Western and national Arab media. The
results therefore showed that these respondents believe that the US media have been
shielding them from the truth about wars, suggesting they had the stomach for gruesome
visuals of what was actually happening on the ground during the Iraqi and Israeli–
Palestinian conflicts.
Parry’s article provides a model of visual framing analysis through an examination of
the pictorial representation of the 2006 Israel–Lebanon conflict. She compares and con-
trasts the use of photographs in two British newspapers – The Times and The Guardian.
Using a detailed content and framing analysis of all press photographs relevant to the
conflict, she moves beyond solely looking at the visual aspect of images and develops
and tests a new model of visual framing analysis that takes seriously both the visual ele-
ments and verbal context of the photographs. The author synthesizes the results in the
discussion and conclusion section and discusses their methodological implications.
Keith, Schwalbe and Silcock discuss the challenges of conducting a quantitative
content analysis of war images across multiple media platforms in a single research
project. Their article details some of the obstacles the authors faced in their examination
of visuals of the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. Their conceptual focus is based on
Shoemaker and Reese’s theory of a hierarchy of influences on media content, and on
multimodality, a concept similarly focused on context that is derived from systemic
functional linguistics. The authors conclude with suggested solutions that could allow
researchers to study images across multiple platforms – print, broadcast and online.
Newton’s photo essay on images of protest shows us the culmination and the turning
point for South Korea’s democracy movement that has been dominated since the end of
the Second World War by military coups, assassinations, dictatorships and corruption.
Following reports of student unrest in South Korea, Newton made his first trip to the
Republic in 1986. After a three-year commitment to photographing such a diverse story,
he explains how the experience left him feeling positive about the value of the media in
communicating the desires of people striving for change, ready to give their lives to
overthrow tyranny and express their views in open debate.

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Fahmy 5

Taken together, the articles in this special issue further advance our knowledge of the
visual communication of conflicts, while broadening our theoretical and methodological
understanding of some of the mechanisms that may explain how reproducing specific
images over time during periods of conflict creates and solidifies a narrow set of iconic
symbols in the public imagination. Future studies should further attempt to understand
the highly complex nature of visual communication and the devices that create confusion
and distort impressions of warfare to manipulate public opinion and manufacture consent
for security policies and military advances.
Unfortunately, these articles have focused least on analyzing the visual components of
media content, which explain much of the conceptual and terminological confusion of
what visual communication is all about. This special issue will hopefully help us revisit
some key concepts in visual research and, as a result, move ahead in the discipline of
visual communication.
Last but not least, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Phil Seib for offer-
ing me this opportunity to be guest editor of this special issue. Appreciation is also
extended to Andrew Hoskins for his support and all the authors who contributed to
‘Images of War’.

References
Messaris, P. and L. Abraham (2001) ‘The Convergence of Agenda Setting and Framing’, in
S. Reese et al. (eds) Framing Public Life, pp. 337–53. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Moeller, S. (2009) Packaging Terrorism: Co-opting the News for Politics and Profit. Chichester:
Wiley-Blackwell.

Biographical note

Shahira Fahmy is an Associate Professor in the School of Journalism and the Department
of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Arizona. She has more than 90 refereed
publications and invited and refereed convention papers, symposia and panel presenta-
tions at a national and international level. Her research interests primarily focus on visual
communication with an international perspective, as well as political communication and
media performance during wartime. Address: The University of Arizona, College of
Social and Behavioral Sciences, School of Journalism, Department of Near Eastern
Studies, 845N Park Avenue, Marshall Building 325, PO Box 210158B, Tucson, AZ
85721-0158, USA. [email: sfahmy@email.arizona.edu]

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