IMAGES AND IMAGININGS OF SECURITY 387

Images and Imaginings of Security

Stuart Croft, Warwick University, UK

From the point of view of many studying international relations, security policy is
produced by governments, and is operated by military and other agencies of the state.
Issues are securitised and desecuritised as state discourses shift. Wars are fought
according to national interests that are either constructed socially or have some more
objective existence. Security, as the existential issue of the state, legitimately infuses
other areas of policy including law and human rights, the economy and relations
with various ‘others’.
Such work on security can be found in different forms in neo-realist and con-
structivist accounts of security. But the focus on the state in the production of
security creates silences, places where security is produced and is articulated that
are important and valid, and yet are not usual in the study of security amongst those
in the discipline of international relations. This special issue seeks to open up those
spaces by involving sociologists, media studies scholars and geographers, as well
as those in international relations, in articulating aspects of security familiar in their
work, but largely unfamiliar in the study of international relations.1
The work on security that is developed in this special issue is largely beyond the
academic study of security in international relations and is captured in the notions
of images and of imaginings of security. How does imagery create and challenge
security conceptions and practices; how can imaginings be deployed to improve the
human lot?
Under images of security, James Gow examines the impact of popular fictional
films in creating understandings of war, in legitimising war and in explaining war.
In doing so, he analyses film and documentary accounts of the Yugoslav War,
illustrating the political nature of these cultural endeavours. Demonstrating the
importance of film studies in the understanding of security, he examines in particular
detail the commentary on the nature of war to be found in a careful reading of
Apocalypse Now. But imagery is not only important in the intersection of film and
security studies. As Jenny Pickerill and Frank Webster show, imagery is a key part
of contemporary mobilisation strategies. These authors examine the phenomenon of
social protest against state security policy. Focusing on resistance to the Iraq War,
largely in the UK, they show how an ‘information war’ is largely a war of image, and
of the impact that images construct. Imagery is important in communicating counter-
hegemonic discourse and is particularly so, as Pickerill and Webster demonstrate, with
the use of the internet (which they carefully analyse) in developing and mobilising
anti-war movements, and with the use of imagery to construct shared meanings across
different communities and languages. Information War, as well as having material

International Relations Copyright © 2006 SAGE Publications

London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi, Vol 20(4): 387–391
[DOI: 10.1177/0047117806069399]
388 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 20(4)

aspects, is crucially articulated through a ‘symbolic realm’; debates between those

in favour of the war in Iraq, and the movements against it, are not just constructed in
terms of ‘logical’ arguments, but are articulated powerfully in ‘symbolic struggles’.
Sarah Oates examines the way in which security threats, and here in particular ter-
rorist threats, have been framed in the conduct of elections in the UK, Russia and
the United States by and through the media. She draws on extensive analysis of the
media coverage of terrorism by coding issues on the nightly news programmes of
major media outlets in each of the three countries. She shows that this ‘framing’
occurs with and through the media, and illustrates the related though different frames
constructed in each national election. The symbiotic relationship between the realm
of politics and that of the news media over terrorism constructs much of the electoral
process in each country, including how political leaders generate messages, and how
terrorism is reported in the news media. The development of such coverage is the
focus of the article by Howard Tumber, who examines the involvement of the news
media in war reporting. Drawing upon extensive interview material, he shows how the
phenomenon of war reporting has grown, how conceptions of ‘professionalism’ and
particular ethical dilemmas have constructed the very identity of a war correspondent,
and how that in turn impacts upon the security practice reported. Completing this
first section of the issue, Andrew Hoskins examines the construction of security
in a ‘media-drenched world’. The media’s struggle to impose templates upon the
events of 11 September 2001 as it happened had profound impacts upon the way
in which we think about security; in part, it led to an elongation of the present into
the immediate future – news stories are ‘premeditated’, so that uncontrollable shock
is minimised. But in this way discourses of danger are emphasised, threat becomes
ongoing. Hoskins also examines how the understanding of threats to British security
was affected by the media coverage of the bomb attacks in London in July 2005; how
the ‘Blitz’ came to be a popular narrative; and how the use of ‘citizen journalists’
created imagery and meaning.
In thinking about images of security, an understanding of the impact of the media
is clearly important. Rather than seeing the media as portraying ‘objective’ truths, or
even just constructed realities, it is possible to think of them in terms of directly
impacting upon elite decision-making itself. The media can play a crucial role not
only in terms of reproducing security discourses – elite to mass communication – but
also, as elites are a major source, target and recipient of news, news media play a
crucial role in the daily conflicts of elites – that is, inter-elite communication.2 In this
sense, in countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom, the media are
a part of the co-production of security discourse.
Thinking through the role of the media in terms of the agency of security is an
important aspect of images of security, but the subject also directly raises the issue of
how security discourses are communicated. It might be thought that this is particularly
important for counter-hegemonic discourses, in which imagery can play a crucial
role: the symbolism of the clenched fist, for example. Yet such images can also be
mainstreamed and stripped of the power of their imagery: the stylised image of Che
Guevara on clothing as a fashion icon represents the neutering of the original meaning.
 IMAGES AND IMAGININGS OF SECURITY 389

Those seeking to establish a counter-hegemonic agenda will do so through the use of

symbols and meanings. For a powerful illustration of this, type ‘no war for oil’ into
a Google image search, and you will find an enormous range of posters, banners,
car stickers and other campaigning tools. Such imagery is crucial in producing
and reproducing meanings. Yet images are not only important in pictorial terms.
A hegemonic security discourse is – by definition – that which is seen to be common
sense, the bounds of the reasonable. One way of undermining such ‘reason’ is through
humour, and cartoons and jokes are a key part of problematising that ‘reason’. As
such, a key political battleground is to gain control of those images – both verbal
and pictorial – that support and undermine particular narratives.3
However, imagery is crucial not only in counter-hegemonic discourse, but also
in reproducing dominant security narratives. The iconic images of the burning Twin
Towers, or of the London bus with its roof blasted off, are frequently shown and in
this way a particular narrative is reinforced: of a powerful, organised enemy, pre-
pared to kill the innocents. This is also true of that other iconic image of the bomb
attacks in London known as 7/7: the ‘woman in the mask’. With her face burnt in the
explosion, a protective mask covering the wounds and a fellow commuter helping
her, this image communicates all the terror of the threat to everyday life. In other
words, images can reinforce narratives, which in turn support particular policy pre-
scriptions. In the United States, billboard posters exhorting all to ‘Remember 9/11’
can be found at central locations by busy intersections.4 The purpose is to support
the policy prescriptions of the global war on terror. And such images are reproduced
frequently in media outlets.
In terms of (re)imaginings of security, Marie Gillespie examines the way in
which the Iraq War has impacted upon constructions of legitimacy and trust amongst
particular communities – not only minority communities – in the United Kingdom.
Drawing on an enormous range of in-depth ethnographic material, she allows people
from diverse communities across the UK to speak to their sense of security and
insecurity, often using illustrative metaphors. People from different communities
are allowed to imagine security – or more clearly, in this case, their imaginings and
readings of insecurity come to the fore: insecurity in Iraq, fear of attack in the UK and,
very powerfully, the way in which Islamophobic and racist tendencies impact directly
on the security of individuals in Britain. In a similar vein, Brandon Hamber, Paddy
Hillyard, Amy Maguire, Monica McWilliams, Gillian Robinson, David Russell and
Margaret Ward allow women to speak security, to develop the concept of gendered
security. They make use of the focus group material that they have acquired from a
number of countries. Drawing powerfully on different strategies deployed by women
in South Africa, Lebanon and Northern Ireland, the central point that they make is
not only the normative, that women should equally participate in security dialogue
at all levels, but also that women do participate. Women’s imaginings of security
lead to policy practice. The two papers by Gillespie and by Hamber et al. show the
power of ethnography and focus groups as a methodology of speaking security. Jon
Coaffee and David Murakami Wood also imagine security in a non-traditional sense,
arguing that in the contemporary ‘war on terror’ ‘security is coming home’. By this
390 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 20(4)

they mean that in the ‘war on terror’ the state in countries of the West – and it is the
UK that they particularly focus on – is making security more ‘civic, domestic and
personal’. This equates to a reterritorialisation of security ‘as a concept, practice
and even as a commodity’. They examine how surveillance has been used and
the impacts upon security that this has brought; deconstruct the new security language
of ‘resilience’ and ‘bouncebackability’; and show how there is more in common
in the imaginings of security needs in global cities than between such cities and
more peripheral cities in the same country. They show how cities compete to be the
most ‘secure’, believing that being able to deliver ‘island security’ (in the sense of
protecting the ‘island’ of the event, such as the conference centre) makes them more
attractive. In such ways conferences and meetings, and increasingly also sporting
events, become ‘securitised’.
(Re)imagining security is about seeing how constructed notions of (in)security
can be challenged and how the quality of lives can be improved. It therefore has
an important normative agenda, and focuses on agencies – not least in allowing
marginalised groups to speak, as in the articles by Hamber et al. and Gillespie. No
less a body than the British Council engaged in attempts to generate debates about
‘reimagining security’ on its 70th anniversary: the subject was deemed to be one of
the ten ‘essential subjects in cultural relations’.5 But of course (re)imagining can have
other dimensions, as Coaffee and Murakami Wood demonstrate. Over ten years ago,
David Mutimer showed how security dangers are constructed through reimagining.6
In other words, reimagining is not a peripheral concern in security studies, but is one
that occurs everywhere as issues and threats are constructed and developed. And
reimagining is not necessarily a ‘progressive’ concept. Hegemonic discourses re-
imagine in the same way that they deploy images of security.
The study of security no longer belongs to the (sub)discipline of international
relations, if it ever did. Insights and findings on security-related topics produced by
scholars in cognate fields produce at least two sets of challenges for those of us who
work in academic international relations. First, it points out actors’ voices that are
not necessarily at the forefront of international relations studies, and yet cover and
engage important security issues. Second, in terms of methodology, what is clear
from these and other studies is that focus groups and ethnography, media studies
and other approaches outlined here offer real opportunities for further deepening
the work of international relations scholars, in collaboration with colleagues from
related disciplines.

Notes

1 Creating a multi- or an inter-disciplinary understanding of the uses of ‘security’ was one of the key
drivers behind the Economic and Social Research Council’s ‘New Security Challenges’ Programme
of which I am director, and within which each of the contributors to this special issue work on at
least one project.
2 See Aeron Davis, ‘Whither Mass Media and Power? Evidence for a Critical Elite Theory Alternative’,
Media, Culture and Society 25(5), 2003, pp. 669–90.
 IMAGES AND IMAGININGS OF SECURITY 391

3 For example, the new post-Saddam Iraqi Ambassador met President Bush and wanted to ask him a
question. ‘Mr President’, he said, ‘I wonder if you can explain something to me? My family have
been watching this programme Star Trek on the television. There are people from all sorts of countries
there: Russians and Scottish and all sorts. But no Iraqis. Why are there no Iraqis, President Bush?’
The President considered for a moment, and then replied, ‘Mr Ambassador, of course it is because
Star Trek takes place in the future.’ The political message of course is that Bush’s policy will lead
to catastrophe for the Iraqi nation. Source: joke retold in the United States by anti-war campaigners
to the author, 2004.
4 See Stuart Croft, Crisis, Culture and America’s War on Terror (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2006).
5 Alastair Crooke, Beverley Milton-Edwards, Mary Kaldor and Paul Vallely, Re-imagining Security
(London: British Council, 2004); and see also ‘Eye to Eye’, Counterpoint, November 2004, available
at: http://www.counterpoint-online.org/download/217/Eye-to-Eye-programme.pdf (accessed
May 2006).
6 David Mutimer, ‘Re-imagining Security: The Metaphors of Proliferation’, YCISS Occasional
Paper 25 (Toronto: York University, 1994).